KHRgfe 



y 



THE 



UNITARIAN BANNER 

A N I ) 

OTHER SERMONS. 



/ 

By JOHN H. HEYWOOD, 

MINISTER OF THE CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY. 



LOUISVILLE: 
PRINTED BY JOHN P. MORTON & CO. 
1878 



THE FRIENDS ON EARTH AND IN HEAVEN, 



WHO, 

DURING THE PAST THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS, BY PERSONAL KINDNESS AND 
HEARTY CO OPERATION IN RELIGIOUS AND HUMANE WORK, 
HAVE ENDEARED LOUISVILLE TO ME, AND TO ALL 
WHO FEEL WITH THE APOSTLE THAT, 
OF FAITH, HOPE, CHARITY, THE 
GREATEST IS CHARITY, 



THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 



J. H. H. 



i 



PREFACE. 



The question is often asked, " What do you and your 
Church believe?" 

I have tried in this little book to answer the question 
plainly and definitely, and at the same time to indicate 
the general and characteristic thought of Unitarians in 
regard to the divine character and government, the spirit 
and work of our Saviour, and upon the great themes of 
life, duty, and immortality. 

I have taken the liberty of inserting ten hymns, written 
by Unitarian and other liberal Christians. Some of them 
are as exquisite songs as the spirit of devotion ever in- 
spired, so fragrant with the fine aroma of revering love 
that, like Mary's spikenard in the home at Bethany, " they 
have filled the house with the odor of the ointment." 

Some of our orthodox friends, to whom Unitarianism 
is a lifeless religion, " Christianity with Christ left out," 
may be surprised to learn that sacred songs, which have 
found a place in most hymn-books and have sung them- 
selves into myriads of hearts, came from the hearts of 
earnest and devout Unitarians. 

J. H. H. 



CONTENTS. 



I. The Unitarian Banner, ....... 7 

II. Foundations of Religion and Science in Human Nature, 15 

III. Differentiation of Christianity; or, The Christ Religion 

in its Essence, ....... 25 

IV. The Faith of a Unitarian Christian, 35 
V. The Survival of the Fittest — Palm Sunday Suggestions, 51 

VI. Olivet's Two Sides, .61 

VII. The Two Aspects of Divine Providence, ... 69 

VIII. Righteousness; or, Life on the Square, .... 79 

IX. Immanuel — God with us — the Key-note of History — a 

Christmas Lesson, . . . . . 87 

X. Foregleams of Immortality, 95 



THE UNITARIAN BANNER. 



"In the name of our God we will set up our banners." — Psalm xx, 5. 

A banner is a symbol. Hence its significance and value. 
Every country, every nationality has its banner, from the 
Roman Empire with its eagles that aspired to universal 
dominion to the smallest principality; from our continental 
nation with the great oceans for its bounds to the humblest 
European republic. The banner symbolizes what is dear 
to the patriot heart, and every patriot is prompted to cling 
to it. Every soldier stands by his colors. Every religious 
body has its banners. They may not be visible flags; they 
may be symbols of different kinds. The creeds were for- 
merly called symbols. Every church has a creed or symbol 
of some kind. Some churches may not have authoritative 
statements of faith and opinion to which subscription is 
required as a condition of membership, but every church, 
every organization has its controlling thought, its charac- 
teristic faith, which in some form or other it expresses and 
makes its symbol or banner. Such banner ever)' religious 
body ought to have, and it should set it up in the name 
of its God; that is, under deep conviction that its banner 
symbolizes and sets forth truths, principles, duties accord- 
ant with the will of God and helpful to man's highest 
interest and truest welfare, mental, moral, and spiritual. 
And to the banner thus set up it should be unfalteringly 



s 



THE UNITARIAN BANNER. 



true. It should stand by its colors. Better have no colors 
than to have them without the manliness or womanliness 
to stand by them. Neutrality where important principles 
are involved is pitiable ; but better be neutral, better openly 
declare that you have no convictions than not to have 
courage to maintain the convictions you profess to have. 
If you have a faith, never be ashamed of it. In no pres- 
ence, under no circumstances be ashamed of it. Be 
ashamed of not having a faith, or of not bravely defend- 
ing the faith you have. "Truth, Freedom, Love" — be this 
the legend of the Unitarian banner, and to it let us ever be 
faithful. 

We, as Unitarian Christians, or, if you prefer, as Christian 
Unitarians, have a faith which is very precious to us who 
were born and bred Unitarians, and, I think I may say 
with confidence, equally precious to you w T ho, having been 
educated in other churches, have accepted it in mature 
years, after long examination, and not only have accepted, 
but have heartily embraced it. And the faith is substan- 
tially this: 

I believe in God, in the one only God. — I do not believe in 
three Gods, or in three persons, three self-conscious beings, 
three intelligences united in one God; but I do believe in 
God, the one infinite, uncreated, all-informing Mind, the 
one ever-living, all-vivifying, comforting, sustaining, renew- 
ing Spirit. 

"Being above all beings! Mighty One, 
Whom none can comprehend, and none explore ! 
Who fill'st existence with Thyself alone, 
Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er — 
Being whom we call God, and know no more." 

I believe in the Divine Sovereignty. — I do not believe in 
an arbitrary sovereign, who of his own will selects some of 



THE UNITARIAN I JAN NICK. 



0 



the men and women created in the divine image for un- 
ending and everlasting happiness, and dooms other men 
and women created in that same image to unending and 
ever-increasing misery and anguish. I do believe in the 
sovereignty of the gracious, wise, just, holy, loving Father, 
who is intent on blessing every soul that he has called 
into existence; that heavenly Father whom Jesus teaches 
us to call our Father, and whose real children he charges 
us to prove ourselves to be by the exercise of a winning, 
forgiving, god-like spirit in those searching and animating 
words, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, 
do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which 
despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be 
the children of your Father which is in heaven, for he 
maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and 
sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 

/ believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living 
God. — I do not believe him to be the infinite and eternal 
God. I do believe in him as Peter presented him to the 
minds and hearts moved and thrilled by the glories and 
wonders of the pentecostal day: "Jesus of Nazareth, a 
man approved of God among you by miracles and won- 
ders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, 
as ye yourselves also know;" whom, after his cruel cruci- 
fixion, God raised from the dead, that "all the house of 
Israel might know assuredly that God made the same Jesus, 
whom they crucified, both Lord and Christ. " In this Jesus, 
thus made by the heavenly Father, his Father and our 
Father, Lord and Christ, in this divinely-appointed Leader, 
Teacher, Saviour, I do believe; and I not only believe 
in him, but I love him and revere him and fervently 
implore the aid of the divine Spirit that I may be faithful 
to him. 



10 THE UNITARIAN BANNER. 

I believe in the Divine Spirit, the Holy Spirit. — I do not 
believe in the Spirit as a personality distinct from God any 
more than I believe in the spirit of man as a personality 
distinct from man. I do believe in the Holy Spirit as the 
Spirit of the heavenly Father, and I believe that that Spirit 
is always seeking access to every human spirit to cleanse 
and renew it and bring it into close, loving, inseparable 
connection with itself for time and for eternity. 

/ believe in the atonement, in the reconciling, the making 
at one God and man. I do not believe in the atonement 
as a means of softening the heart of God and making it 
able and willing to forgive. That heart was never unable 
or unwilling to forgive, never unwilling to welcome to itself 
any of its penitent children. Never was the door of the 
hospitable home of any loving parent so ready to open to 
the returning son after sad wanderings as the heart of God 
to open itself to the lowly, repentant prodigal. " If ye, 
being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, 
how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy 
Spirit to them that ask him?" So spake He, who pene- 
trated far deeper than any or all others into the measureless 
depths of the divine heart, of the readiness of that heart 
always to cleanse and forgive and bless the hearts of its 
children. The heart of God never needed to be softened; 
but oh ! how greatly man needs to have his heart changed 
and softened, in the old prophet's searching language; to 
have the stony heart, the heart hardened, almost petrified, 
by sins taken away, and the heart of flesh given to him. I 
believe in the atoning, the reconciling power of Jesus to 
touch and soften the hearts of men; of Jesus on the cross, 
when from amid the death agonies he breathed a prayer 
for the forgiveness of his murderers. I believe in his 
atoning power, not only when on the cross, but in every 



THE UNITARIAN BANNER. 



moment, in every deed, in every influence of his pure. 
sinless, loving, winning life. He was and is and ever U 
be the great reconciler. His cross is the mighty mag 
which has always drawn and always will draw the human 
heart to him, and through him to his Father and our Father ; 
his cross rendered magnetic, not by material blood, but by 
the love which made him willing to shed every drop for the 
redemption and happiness of man. 

I believe in Repentanee. — I do not believe in any technical 
experience or merely transient emotion, but I do believ - 
real change of heart; that thorough change which may not 
be very demonstrative in wordy professions, but which 
turns a man from wrong thinking, wrong willing, wrong 
doing to right thinking, right willing, and right doing; such 
change as the earnest, sincere, genuine prophets insisted on 
as alone acceptable to God; which makes a man cease to 
do evil and learn to do well, to seek judgment, relieve the 
oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. And 
such repentance leads to righteousness, that personal Tight- 
ness of being and Tightness of doing which Jesus would 
have characterize every friend and follower of his; which 
is owned and blessed of God; and which ennobles and 
blesses man in making him truthful, honest, upright, 
straightforward, and in enabling him to confide in his 
brother man; and which unites, strengthens, adorns society 
by genuine morality, not superficial and soulless, but deep 
and vital; the morality which rests on principle, on which 
Jesus pronounces his benediction; the morality of the 
Sermon on the Mount; that heart morality and life mor- 
ality which is applicable in all ages and all worlds, and 
never be outgrown. 

/ believe in Retribution. — I do not believe in hopeless, 
vindictive punishment, leading only to despair, but I do 



12 



THE UNITARIAN BANNER. 



believe in just and righteous chastening proportioned to 
character, opportunity, desert, such chastening as the 
heavenly Father in His unerring wisdom, fairness, and 
justice sees best for his weak, erring children; children 
whom, notwithstanding their errors and sins, He still loves, 
and whose hearts he yearns with infinite yearning to win 
to himself, to truth, goodness, happiness, and heaven. 

Shall it be that the human heart, as it becomes more and 
more filled with the spirit of Christ and of God, grows ten- 
derer, more merciful, and more intent on rescuing the im- 
periled and saving the lost, and that the great father-heart 
of God can ever be shut against any of his children, or can 
ever forget them? Shall we to whom Jesus has unvailed 
the face of our Father, and in all its benignity, have less 
inspiring views of the divine providence and graciousness 
than the prophet when, with heart pervaded with reverence 
and love, he said, " Can a woman forget her sucking child, 
that she should not have compassion on the son of her 
womb? Yea, she may forget, yet will I not forget thee." 
Never, never .will God forget, and never will he cease to be 
as gracious and loving as he is just. The eternal ages of 
immortality will but cause His infinite holiness and death- 
less love to reveal themselves more and more. 

I believe in Immortality. — I do not believe in a vague, 
shadowy, unreal state of being, a world of ghosts and mel- 
ancholy shades ; but I do believe in a world of reality, a 
world of light, of truth, of life, made bright and beautiful 
by the full outshining of light from Him who is light and in 
whom is no darkness at all. 

/ believe in the Church of Christ and God as the divinely- 
ordained means and instrument of helping men in faithful 
living here and in real preparation for the life of immor- 
tality. I do not believe in the church as an ecclesiastical 



THE UNITARIAN HANNKK. 



13 



corporation, or as an instrument of ambition and power, 
I do believe in it as the association of all honest, Christ- 
loving, God-serving souls, of all truth-seeking mind . 
real fellowship, a union of warm and sympathetic hearts 
filled with love for God and love for man, and intenl on 
making the world better, brighter, and happier. 

And I believe in the Religion which this broad church, 
broad as the love of Christ, seeks to promote and make 
universally prevalent. In merely professional religion, the 
religion which only says, however loudly, " Lord, Lord," 
I do not believe, but most thoroughly do I believe in the 
religion which rests upon the two great commandments, 
which is so real and so beneficent that when the ear hears 
it, it blesses it, when the eye sees it, it gives witness unto 
it, which delivers the poor and the fatherless and him that 
has none to help, which puts on righteousness for its cloth- 
ing and justice for its diadem — that religion which sees 
with the eye of faith and aspires in the spirit of hope and 
lives the life of charity. Such in substance is our faith. 

Does the summary presented seem a fair statement of 
your faith as a Unitarian Christian, with God for r 
Father and Jesus as your Teacher, Leader, Saviour? Can 
you take a banner with God's "crown-name," Father. 
inscribed on it in letters of light as your banner? Then 
set it up in the name of the Lord. Stand up for it. Do 
not act as if ashamed of it. Your faith may have re; - □ 
to be ashamed of you for your faint-heartedness and timid- 
ity in asserting and maintaining it, but you have no o< ca- 
sion to be ashamed of it. It is a noble, rational, glorious 
faith; stand up for it. Don't give way for a moment to 
the assumptions or the superciliousness of its opponents 
and decriers, whether they be fair women or bigoted men. 
Don't meet bigotry with bigotry — that would not be 



14 



THE UNITARIAN BANNER. 



Christ-like; equally unchristlike would it be to succumb to 
bigotry through fear or mistaken and mistaking courtesy. 

In the name of God set up your banner and seek the 
blessing of the Spirit of God, that you may defend it in 
manner and courage becoming a child of the heavenly 
Father and a reverent follower of Him who said, " To this 
end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, 
that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that 
is of the truth heareth my voice." 



THE BOND OF LOVE. 

" Beneath the shadow of the cross, 
As earthly hopes remove, 
His new commandment Jesus gives, 
His blessed word of love. 

" Oh, bond of union, strong and deep ! 
Oh, bond of perfect peace! 
Xot e'en the lifted cross can harm 
If we but hold to this. 

"Then, Jesus, be thy spirit ours, 
And swift our feet shall move 
To deeds of pure self-sacrifice 
And the sweet tasks of love." 

Samuel Longfellow. 



THE FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION A N I ) 
OF SCIENCE IN HUMAN NATURE. 



" Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of 
things not seen." — Hebrews xi, i. 

Many persons, in the general mental awakening which 
characterizes the present age, seem to think that by and by, 
perhaps ere long, science will take the place of religion. 
Their thought appears to be that religion belongs to ages 
of ignorance, when the laws and powers of nature are 
very imperfectly understood, and that with the completer 
unfolding and better understanding of those powers and 
laws, men wi^l seek in them alone inspiration and guidance. 
Science, they say, is a matter of understanding, religion of 
faith ; the one has a solid, the other a fanciful basis : the 
one must therefore endure, the other must ultimately pass 
away. 

This view I believe to be as one-sided and erroneous as 
the extreme opposite view, held by many religionists, that 
science is essentially atheistic, and hence a delusion and a 
snare. Too many, on the one side and on the other, have 
grossly erred in representing religion and science as antag- 
onistic to each other. It is a mournful fact that many 
theologians, Roman Catholic and Protestant, have fought 



1 6 FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION AND OF SCIENCE. 

wildly, blindly, irrationally against science, have placed 
every conceivable barrier that prejudice could erect to 
obstruct its progress. The beautiful, luminous science of 
astronomy was thus fought against in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries — Sisera fighting against the stars — its 
most gifted expounders imprisoned, the works in which its 
principles were most clearly elucidated put on the list of 
forbidden books. Geology has had similar opposition to 
encounter, similar barriers erected against it. It has been 
denounced as infidel on the same ground as astronomy — 
assumed antagonism to the teachings of Scripture. And 
the same jealousy and unworthy apprehension of science 
are found among many theologians yet. And the counter- 
part of this jealousy and misapprehension we find among 
not a few scientists, who, because many theologians have 
been narrow-minded and exclusive, and because many 
superstitions have been connected with religion, and faith 
has often been placed in opposition to reason, and foolish 
barriers put in the way of truth on her resistless course, 
have pronounced religion a worn-out thing, well enough 
in dark ages, but utterly unable to bear the light of day 
and to meet the wants of advancing society. 

All wrong, as I believe, on both sides are these misap- 
prehensions and jealousies. Utterly unjust to science and 
religion, no less than to human nature, is the position that 
man needs not or can outgrow either the one or the other. 
Both are essential and both rest on firm foundations. Each 
has its own place to fill, its own domain to rule; neither 
can fill the place nor rule the domain of the other ; and 
both places must be filled, both domains ruled, and ruled 
well, if the great needs of human nature are to be met, its 
mighty hunger satisfied. For this nature hungers for truth 
and it hungers for God. It cries out for truth, the hea- 



FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION AND OF SCIENCE. I J 



venly manna, and it cries out for the life of its life, even 
the living God. 

Science and religion both rest on firm foundations, the 
foundation and justification of the one being in the intel- 
lectual, of the other in the spiritual powers, and the spiritual 
and intellectual powers combine with the physical to make 
up and round out human nature in full symmetry, develop- 
ment, and beauty. Let us carefully consider this point — 
of the equally firm and sure foundations of each — of science 
and of religion. 

The former belongs to the domain of the intellect, and 
the organ of the intellect is the understanding — the power 
which analyzes, searches, compares, and combines ; which 
seeks out facts and endeavors to ascertain the law that 
explains and harmonizes them. No one can doubt the 
reality or solidity of this foundation of science. Though 
we may not be students or proficients in science ourselves, 
yet we desire to know, so far as possible, the facts, the 
realities in the universe and the laws by which those facts 
are reconciled and explained, and we rejoice that there are 
men who have time, means, talents, taste, and genius to 
discover those facts and discern those laws. Such men 
we regard not only as mental benefactors, but as repre- 
sentatives of the human intellect in its deepest cravings 
and in its highest aspirations. We may personally know 
little of astronomy, geology, paleontology, physiology, or 
the higher mathematics, yet none the less do we admire 
those great sciences, seeing in them the facts which keen 
and laborious searchers have ascertained, and the deep un- 
derlying laws which patient thinkers have read ; and for 
the men who have discovered the farts and read the laws — 
Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Laplace, Lyell, Owen, 
Agassiz, Tyndall, Huxley, Darwin, we have profound re- 



1 8 FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGIQX AND OF SCIENCE. 



spect and warm gratitude. Science, true science, commands 
our reverence, not only because of our assurance that all 
science, .however impracticable and visionary it may seem 
at first, yet ultimately will conduce to real, practical good, 
as Agassiz so well indicated when he bade his hearers 
remember that the power of electricity, now so intimately 
connected not only with deeply-interesting thought, but 
with the daily business of life — carrying the messages of 
commerce and affection across continents and under the 
deep sea — when first discovered was used to move puppets 
for the amusement of children. Not only for this confi- 
dence of ultimate good to result from it does science com- 
mand our reverence, but because of its own majesty and 
because it discloses more and more of that all-uniting, all- 
reconciling truth which makes the universe a fair and 
well-ordered cosmos, and which the mind of man more 
and more craves to know. Science has foundation firm, 
solid, permanent in the intellectual nature. This none will 
deny. 

The foundation of religion in the spiritual nature is 
equally solid and permanent. As the intellect seeks to 
learn the facts and to read the laws of the universe, so the 
soul, with its sense of the infinite, with its aspiration for 
the heavenly and the divine, with its yearning for the 
enduring, the immortal, longs for, seeks to find the infinite, 
the all-informing Mind, the supreme Wisdom, of which it 
feels that those wondrous, all-harmonizing laws are the 
expression, the sublime thought. Consciousness and the 
history of the race attest this yearning, this tendency. In 
reality the two-fold testimony is stronger in the latter 
instance than in the former, because if we take the race 
through and from the beginning, more, many more have 
had definite consciousness of the power and influence of 



FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION AND OF SCIENCE. 1 9 



their spiritual yearnings than of their intellectual aspir- 
ings. One may assert indeed that this testimony is weak- 
ened by the fact of the ignorance, the unintellectuality of 
the masses of men. If so, then let him be reminded that 
in all the great thinkers who have led humanity's van — 
Plato, Socrates, Zoroaster — there has been the same strong 
attestation to the aspiration of the spiritual nature to the 
infinite and the divine. Of this nature faith is the organ. 
It is to the spiritual nature what the understanding is to the 
intellectual, a veritable, substantial power, a real, 'distinctive 
attribute, a far-reaching, penetrating, grand capacity. 

But, says one, admitting the reality of this power, it has 
so often been connected with illusions and delusions, with 
superstitions and dreams, that it can not be confided in. 
Indeed ? Shall we say then for the same reason the under- 
standing can not be confided in? Has it not been con- 
nected, too, with great, countless illusions and delusions? 
What was the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, that most 
elaborate construction by the understanding of the scheme 
of the universe, but a mighty error, a stupendous delu- 
sion? And does not the history of the understanding in 
its searchings, its analyses, and its combinings in all depart- 
ments of science, abound in illusions? Shall we therefore 
set the understanding aside as altogether illusory and unre- 
liable? Not unless we are prepared to abandon ourselves 
to utter pyrrhonism, to discrown and disown our intel- 
lectual nature. If the objection then be set aside as of no 
weight when applied to the understanding, let it with equal 
decisiveness be set aside as inapplicable to the great organ 
of the spiritual nature, faith. 

"But the understanding has to do with visible things, 
with things tangible, or that reveal themselves to some of 
the senses, while faith concerns itself with invisible things. 



20 FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION AND OF SCIENCE. 



and therefore the one can be relied on and the other not.' 7 
Will that statement bear examination? The understanding 
has. indeed, to do with visible and tangible things, but it 
has other things and all- important things to deal with. 
Why does it concern itself with things visible and tangible? 
Surely, to find out the laws which govern them; and did 
mortal eye ever see, did mortal finger ever touch one of 
those laws? Altogether invisible and intangible are they, 
and yet the discerning of them is the crowning glory of 
the understanding, and the writing of them in legible letters 
so that even the wayfaring man may read, is the grand 
achievement of science. The understanding has to do with 
invisible things, and so has faith, and poor and dull-eyed 
would both be if they had not to do with them. Invisible 
things! Whoever saw or handled the love which makes 
heroines of mothers guarding their dear children in face of 
direst peril, or the patriotism which leads the young and 
the noble to surrender life for country, or the power of 
conscience which makes one strong against bribes and all 
the allurements of evil, and calm amid the agonies of a 
cruel death? The glory and the gleam would speedily fade 
from human life and nobleness vanish from human charac- 
ter, were man to cease to feel the charm and the power of 
invisible realities. 

Setting these objections, then, aside as invalid, let us 
consider faith as the organ of the soul. A grand capacity, 
a real, substantial power it is. The sacred writer presents 
it in its reality and majesty when he says, "Faith is the 
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not 
seen." Substance ; that means the foundation on which they 
stand, to us the ground of trust in their existence. The 
evidence, the proof of things not seen. The significance 
and strength of that expression, Mr. Mountford vividly 



FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION AND OF SCIENCE, 21 



illustrates when he says, "Faith, like the magnetic needle 

ill a starless night, is the evidence of things not seen/' 
That needle, in its steady pointing, attests the existence of 
the magnetic pole. It is as if it said audibly, "That pole 
is and there it is." It is an invisible thing that it attests, but 
no seaman, however immersed in practicalities, however 
incredulous of spiritual realities, but believes in the invis- 
ible reality revealed by the mystic finger, and surrenders 
himself to the wonderful guidance. Clouds may shut out 
the sun, midnight gloom may hide the stars, tempests may 
lash the sea into rage, but so long as he has the tremulous 
but faithfully-pointing index to look to, he sails on without 
fear. Faith thus steadily points to a spiritual world and to 
God. In its steady pointing it is the evidence, the attesta- 
tion, the proof of things not seen. It is as if it said in 
tones distinct and clear of the spiritual world, " It is and 
the re it is and man, sailing over life's oft-tempestuous sea, 
has confided in the testimony and yielded himself up to 
the providential guidance. Sometimes the magnetic needle 
is deflected for a time from its steady pointing by the 
near presence of counter-attractions, but it earnestly 
strives to release itself from the disturbing influence and 
to resume its congenial duty of pointing unintermittingly 
to the pole. Sometimes faith is exposed to influences 
which would break its connection with the spiritual world, 
turn its heaven-pointing finger aside, but like the magnetic 
needle it seeks all the while to release itself from the 
unhappy thralldom and to turn its majestic finger skyward. 
It would be, it must be the evidence of things not seen. 
That is its high prerogative, its sublime office. 

The understanding leads the intellectual nature to 
science; faith leads the spiritual nature to religion. Both 
natures belong to man ; let either be disowned or dishon- 



22 FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION AND OF SCIENCE. 



ored, and so far he ceases to be man, so far he mars the 
divine image, destroys the divine likeness. Let both be ? 
reverenced, be permitted and invited to do to the utmost 
their special work; let the understanding enrich and ex- 
pand the intellectual nature by the grandeurs and with the 
inestimable resources of science ; let the spiritual nature 
be enlarged, uplifted, and vivified by the inspirations and 
attractions of the spiritual world revealed by faith, and be 
cleansed and renewed by the Divine Spirit and grace; 
and let the two-fold nature thus unfolded and developed 
be connected with a healthful physical organization, then 
we have perfect manhood; the divine image brought out 
distinct and clear, the divine likeness restored, and man — 
whom the old philosophers called the microcosm — brought 
into harmony with the macrocosm, the universe. Then 
science and religion minister richly and freely each to the 
other, clearing the atmosphere and making the vision keen. 
Science, in showing the regularity, uniformity, and wide 
sweep of the laws by which the Creator governs the uni- 
verse, saves religion from narrowness, one-sidedness, capri- 
ciousness, and superstition; and religion, in revealing the 
nearness, the indwelling presence, the immediate and con- 
stant action of God, saves science from bondage to unin- 
telligent law, and makes the universe all luminous and 
warm with divine light and love. Nay, more; religion 
unfolds and makes real to science the truth presented in 
those words of Jesus, " all live to God" the truth which 
in its wide sweep embraces all worlds, and all being, and 
which has such preciousness and power of consolation 
for the heart with its manifold experiences of light and 
darkness, of blight and bloom — the truth, from before 
whose radiance death vanishes and life reigns. Science in 
itself has no word of comfort for the heart, no assurance 



FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION AND OF SCIENCE. 23 



of immortality. It leads us to the grave, but it has no 
hand to help us beyond it. The supporting hand, the 
cheering assurance, the thrilling word — for them wt must 
look to religion, and, thank God, we look not in vain. The 
Father of spirits discloses himself to our spirits, and with 
that revealing of himself reveals the world of immortality, 
And to make the unfolding fuller, the revealing more defi- 
nite and quickening, He has given us one whose eye was 
undimmed by sin, whose whole being was in perfect accord 
with the divine will, and in whom, therefore, faith did its 
perfect work in removing the dark barriers, the narrow 
limitations that shut mind and soul in, and enabling him 
to see the King in his beauty and the immortal world in 
its nearness and radiance. In Jesus we see faith in its 
perfectness of power. Looking upon him, with the eye 
of the soul seeing him, feeling the gentle pressure of his 
hand, listening to his thought -laden, deeply -penetrating 
words, we begin to apprehend more distinctly and to 
appreciate more thoroughly that grand, weighty declara- 
tion of our text — as profound in philosophy as it is inspir- 
ing in religion, "Now, faith is the substance of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen/* 



FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGION AND OF SCIENCE. 



NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE. 

" Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee ; 
E 'en though it be a cross that raiseth me, >: ' 

Still all my song shall be — 
Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee. 

"Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down, 
Darkness comes over me, my rest a stone, 

Yet in my dreams I 'd be 
Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee. 

" There let the way appear steps unto heaven; 
All that thou sendest me in mercy given ; 

Angels to beckon me 
Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee. 

" Then, with my waking thoughts bright with thy praise, 
Out of my stony griefs Bethel I '11 raise; 

So by my woes to be 
Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee. 

"Or if on joyful wing cleaving the sky, 
Sun, moon, and stars forgot, upward I fly, 

Still all my song shall be, 
Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee." 

Sarah F. Adams. 



DIFFERENTIATION OF CHRISTIANITY: 
Or, the Christ-Religion in its Essence. 



;< By one Spirit are we all baptized into one body." — I Cor. xii, 13. 

Many of the most earnest men and women in all parts 
of Christendom are getting to be utterly weary of sec- 
tarianism, and wish it were well out of the way. And when 
one thinks how narrow and bitter the sectarian spirit has 
been, how it has shut up sympathy within narrow est 
bounds, how it has set Christians at variance, and wasted 
in petty, party strifes resources that ought to have been 
used for redeeming and ennobling humanity, sectarianism 
does seem altogether wretched and hateful, fit only to be 
cast into the limbo, or fool's paradise, to which all vanity 
and nonsense belong. 

But to one calmly reflecting upon the development and 
progress of Christianity, upon the unfolding of religious 
thought, and its application to life and society, denomina- 
tionalism, which is sometimes confounded with sectarianism, 
though unjustly — for the one is, as its etymology shows, 
essentially divisive and exclusive, which the other is not, 
either essentially or necessarily — denominationalism does 
not seem altogether a vile and bad thing, or to have been 
without its use in civilizing and evangelizing the world. 
Nay, it evidently has had a place to fill, a work to do in 



26 DIFFERENTIATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 



the providential education of the race. If you can find 
any part of Christendom, large or small, nation or com- 
munity, in which, because of one all-dominating ecclesiasti- 
cism, no denominationalism has been permitted to be or to 
appear, be sure that you will find that community or nation 
not the most active and advanced in intellectual life, not 
the most abounding in spiritual vitality, in moral energy, 
and well-directed beneficence, but the opposite. Witness 
Spain, Portugal, Mexico; witness the Roman States, where, 
notwithstanding the varied learning and great culture of 
the members of the papal court and all the appliances of 
the most wonderful ecclesiastical organization that the world 
has ever known, religion has lost its hold upon nearly all 
the educated men, has become with many among the un- 
educated masses a gross superstition, where popular in- 
struction has been at low ebb, and philanthropic institutions, 
insane asylums, and kindred establishments have felt and 
manifested least of the humanizing influence characteristic 
of the age. And this testimony becomes all the stronger 
and more conclusive when we see that the Roman Catholic 
Church does far more for the instruction of its masses, 
makes its philanthropic institutions nobler, humaner, in 
Protestant countries, in communities all alive with de- 
nominational spirit and activity than in the states which 
have been through the ages right under the eye and pene- 
trated all through with the influences of the papacy. For 
example, Roman Catholicism in the United States is purer, 
more spiritual, freer from superstition, more intent on the 
instruction of the masses, and has its benevolent institutions 
in far better condition than in Italy, where for centuries its 
sway was unlimited. 

Denominaticnalism has evidently had, and still has, an 
important part to play as an educational factor, an agent of 



DIFFERENTIATION OF 



CHRISTIANITY. 



27 



mental and spiritual development. What is that part? I [ow 
is it played? We meet quite often in metaphysical and 
scientific works with the term "differentiation," and when 
we look to our dictionaries for a definition we see that the 
word in logic designates "the act of distinguishing or 
describing a thing by giving its differentia or specific differ- 
ence;" and that in physiology "it designates the produ< tion 
of a diversity of parts by a process of evolution or devel- 
opment, as when the seed develops the root and the stem, 
the initial stem develops the leaf, branches, flower- buds, 
etc." Taking either of these definitions, we find that 
denominationalism has had its part to perform in the 
differentiation of Christianity. If we take the logical 
definition, denominationalism has helped, consciously or 
unconsciously, directly or indirectly, in distinguishing and 
describing Christianity by giving its differentia, showing 
what its specific, essential quality is. Sometimes it has 
shown it purposely and positively by direct statement of 
what that essence is; sometimes negatively by aiding 
people to see very plainly that the essence of Christianity 
is something very different from the quality emphasized 
by one or another form of sectarianism. By the phys- 
iological definition it has served as a differentiator of 
Christianity, in evolving or developing the powers and 
qualities inherent in Christianity, as leaf, branches, and 
flower-buds are developed from the initial stem. 

What is that initial stem? What is the essential Chris- 
tianity that is to be differentiated? Not a dogma, not a 
form, not an ordinance, not an institution. It is something, 
if you will, inclusive of them all, but in thought and essence 
it is distinct from them and superior to them. It is a power, 
a force — a mighty mental and moraj force — a power of 
spirit and of life. How magnificent, how uplifting, that 



28 



DIFFERENTIATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 



outflow of the soul of our Saviour, "I am come that they 
might have life, and have it more abundantly." not stint- 
edly, but aboundinglv. in exceeding abundance. Chris- 
tianity, in its essence, is that power of life, that living and 
life-giving power which came and which comes, which 
never stops coming into the world with and through Christ. 
Theology speaks of him as the incarnation of God, and in 
the profoundest, most philosophic sense I believe he was 
such incarnation, according to that memorable declaration 
of his to his earnestly-inquiring disciple, "The words that 
I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father 
that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works/'' The indwelling 
presence in Christ of that infinite, eternal Being whom our 
minds call God, whom our hearts call Father, if you term 
that incarnation, I accept it, I believe in it thoroughly. It 
meets the heart's yearning, it accords with the mind's 
deepest thinking upon the relation between God and man. 
In every true soul God is in some measure incarnate ; to 
every soul He comes, in every soul He dwells according to its 
openness and its receptivity. In the language of St. John, 
••As many as receive him, to them gives he power to be- 
come the sons of God." The soul of Jesus was wide open, 
every window, every door : there was no sin, no selfishness 
to close any entrance, to lessen in any degree its receptivity, 
and the divine presence flowed in as flows the ocean into the 
inlets, filling, penetrating, pervading, thus making that rich ; 
holy, beautiful nature, that consecrated Being, full of God. 

From the soul of Jesus thus infilled with divinity, thus 
permeated with the Father's presence, flowed forth that 
spiritual force, that living and life-giving power which we 
call Christianity. That is what it was, what in essence it 
is — a vital power, a 'spiritual force ; not an institution, not 
an organization, but that mighty power of spirit and 'of life, 



DIFFERENTIATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 



which was to reveal itself not only amid the glorious won- 
ders and thrilling inspirations of the pentecostal day, and 
at the uttering of apostolic voices and the laying on of 
apostolic hands, but through the ages the world oyer, 
and wherever earnest, sincere, fervent men and women, 
lovers of God and of God's children, should work in the 
spirit of Jesus for the redemption, uplifting, ennobling of 
humanity. 

In good time, in God's time, which is always good, v. 
that vital and vitalizing power sent into the world. And 
for what end? Not to be petrified, not fossilized. It was 
to enter hearts, to make them pure, tender, loving, to 
change them from stone to flesh, to fill them with sweet 
and undying sympathy, with charity and compassion, to 
charge them to the full, and make them electric with the 
spirit of friendship, genuine friendship, after the order of 
Christ's. It was to enter -minds, to make them radiant 
with glorious and divine truths of the fatherhood of God, 
of the redeeming work of Christ, of the cleansing, renew- 
ing, sanctifying influence of the divine Spirit, of human 
brotherhood, and of an inspiring immortality. It was to 
enter souls, and give them a living sense of God, an ex- 
perimental knowledge of religion; to bind them inseparably 
to the dear Father in heaven in a love and trust which give 
the freedom of the universe, opening the spiritual eve and 
making immortality as near as it is real. It was to enter 
character as a transforming presence, molding it into 
heavenly symmetry and beauty. It was to enter society, 
to purify, enlighten, soften, elevate it; to exorcise from it 
the demons of selfishness, avarice, lust, and bring in all 
winning, saving, angel presences. To enter INSTITUTIONS, 
to make them just, humane, merciful; to render them hon- 
orable to God in making them helpful to man acc ording to 



4 

30 DIFFERENTIATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 

our Saviour's searching, probing utterance, when to cold, 
hard, unbrotherly formalism, he said, "The Sabbath was 
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath, therefore the 
Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath'' — ever-memorable 
declaration of deepest meaning and widest range, taking 
within its grasp all institutions, churches, organizations, 
and teaching that they are all made for man, and not man 
for them. In a word, this divine power, this mighty spir- 
itual force was to enter the world, and to pervade it in all 
its relations, associations, agencies, until its kingdoms — all 
its kingdoms, mental, moral, spiritual — should become the 
kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, in accordance with 
and in fulfillment of that wonderful declaration of Jesus, 
"To this end was I born, and for this cause came I 
into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth." 

This was and is Christianity, as I understand it, in its 
differentia, its specific attribute, its essential quality. A 
power, a force; that power, that, force, one; but one not 
in any narrowness of thought or in any petty limit of 
measure; one rather as God is one — his unity, his oneness 
comprehending measureless, infinite diversity : or, if you 
will, one as solar light is one, but which the prism may 
resolve into the seven colors, and whose rays, as science 
teaches us, are not luminous rays only, but heating rays 
and rays of wondrous chemical power also. 

This mighty force of Christianity was, is, ever will be 
one; but from its first manifestation men have constantly 
been analyzing it, seeking to have its light pass through 
some resolving prism; and it has appeared therefore to 
them in one or more of its constituent colors rather than 
in its beautiful, all-comprehending oneness. 

The power of Christianity in the hearts, over the lives 
of St. Paul, St. James, and St. John was the same in its 



DIFFERENTIATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 



31 



transforming, renewing influence, but how different their 
intellectual conceptions of it! Read their respective epis- 
tles carefully, and you can not fail to be struck with their 
different representations of Christianity, not discordant or 
antagonistic, but different according as they saw one or 
another of the rays into which the pure light was resolved, 
or as they discerned and felt the luminous or the heating 
or the chemical rays. 

As it was in the beginning, the apostolic age, so has it 
been ever since. One man or one set of men, or on e 
church or denomination has seen and made prominent this 
ray, while another has seen that ray and made it prominent. 
All the while the prism has been applied and the analyzing, 
resolving process has gone on. That is right and well, 
and so far as denominationalism uses its prism for that end 
it does inestimable good. Harm is done when sectarianism, 
usurping denominationalism's place, insists that the one 
colored ray on which it fastens its eye is Christianity's 
glorious light; when the Methodist sees only the red ray. 
and the Baptist the orange, and the Congregationalist the 
yellow, and the Episcopalian the green, and the Presby- 
terian the blue, and the Roman Catholic the indigo, and 
the Unitarian or Universalist the violet, and each vehe- 
mently asserts, and denounces the others if they do not 
agree to the assertion, that the single ray which he sees is 
the full solar beam. It is well to analyze and distinguish 
the several rays in Christianity's full, resplendent beam : 
but this analyzing must be done to make the final synthesis 
complete, to aid in recombining those rays that our think- 
ing, our acting, our living may be in its clear, white light, 
and we thus receive its full blessing. 

It is well that there are different churches and denomi- 
nations, and that they should feel that there are diversities 



32 DIFFERENTIATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 

of gifts, and should make the most of the gifts with which 
they are favored, but let them always remember that others 
have their gifts, and that it is the same Spirit from whom 
all true, effective gifts do come. Knowing that there are 
differences of administration, let churches, denominations, 
adopt the forms of government which seem most in 
accord with the spirit and the word of Christ and best 
adapted to the building up of the great kingdom of truth 
and righteousness, of beneficence and humanity; but let 
them be sure to remember always that there is one and the 
same Lord to them and to those who have other forms 
of administration. Knowing that there are diversities of 
operations — manifold ways of effective working — let indi- 
vidual Christians, churches, associations work in the ways, 
according to the methods which seem best fitted for ac- 
complishing the great ends of beneficence; but let them 
never forget that others may feel impelled to work in dif- 
ferent ways and by different methods, and that it is the 
same God which worketh all in all. But in whatever part 
of the vineyard we are placed let us work, not feeling that 
our part is the whole vineyard, but never forgetting that 
it is a part of the great vineyard. 

And may the good Spirit enable us all so to work, with 
such singleness of mind, such breadth of purpose, such 
fervency of soul, and so lovingly and generously that we 
may have day by day a deepening sense of the divine 
Fatherhood, a more vivid realization of human brotherhood, 
and be bound by closer and stronger heart-ties to that 
winning, inspiring Guide, Redeemer, Friend, who came 
on earth to accomplish friendship's noblest, highest, grand- 
est office and work in leading us to God, in helping us to 
know Him and serve Him and enjoy Him and be blessed 
by His deep and abiding peace — office and work so sweetly, 



DIFFERENTIATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 33 

so touchingly indicated in the petition, whic h came from his 
heart's depths, "That they all may be one, as thou, Father, 
art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us." 
That. is the grand synthesis to which our analyses, if we arc- 
true in making them, will lead us. That is the union of 
all the parts in one organic, effective whole, a union so 
complete and so vital that if " one member suffer, all the 
members suffer with it, or one member be honored, all re- 
joice with it " — the realization and fulfillment of the apos- 
tle's vision and prophetic hope that by one Spirit we may 
all be baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gen- 
tiles, whether we be bond or free. 

" In one fraternal bond of love, 
One fellowship of mind, 
The saints below and saints above 

Their bliss and glory find." $ 



I 



DIFFERENTIATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 



WATCHMAN, TELL US OF THE NIGHT. 

" Watchman, tell us of the night— 

What its signs of promise are? 
Traveller, o'er yon mountain's height, 

See that glory-beaming star ! 
Watchman, does its beauteous ray 

Aught of hope or joy foretell? 
Traveller, yes; it brings the day, 

Promised day of Israel. 

" Watchman, tell us of the night; 

Higher yet that star ascends. 
Traveller, blessedness and light, 

Peace and truth its course portends. 
Watchman, will its beams alone 

Gild the spot that gave them birth? 
Traveller, ages are its own; 

See, it bursts o'er all the earth. 

"Watchman, tell us of the night, 
For the morning seems to dawn. 
Traveller, darkness takes its flight, 
Doubt and terror are withdrawn. 
Watchman, let thy wanderings cease : 

Hie thee to thy quiet home. 
Traveller, lo! the Prince of Peace, 
Lo ! the Son of God is come." 

Sir John Bowring. 



THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



u Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." — Mark ix. 24. 

You ask, what do Unitarian Christians believe? Let me 
endeavor to give, this evening, as full and clear an answer to 
your question as the limits of a single discourse will permit. 
The words selected for my text seem to me especially 
appropriate, because, in disclosing the true attitude and 
great need of the human soul, they indicate the kind of 
service which an earnest and living church will aim to 
render to man, and such service we think the Unitarian, 
the liberal Christian, Church is pre-eminently fitted to 
render. 

They indicate the soul's true attitude and its great need. 
"Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. 7 ' From the 
depths of a warm, tender heart, yearning for the deliver- 
ance of the poor, suffering boy from his terrible affliction, 
came this touching, thrilling cry. The agitated, agonized 
father did believe, and with a belief that quivered and 
throbbed, so real, so intense was it, so filled with his heart's 
life-blood. He knew he believed, and not for worlds 
would he have parted with his belief. But such was his 
humility, his self-distrust, that he would not claim for his 
faith that it was perfect, lacking nothing. It might want 



36 THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 

some important element, and, if so, he longed to have the 
want supplied. "Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief." 
This was his cry. It is the cry, the entreaty of the human 
soul. 

Man is made for belief, for faith. It is his nature's 
great necessity to believe. Circumstances,, external influ- 
ences, peculiarities of temperament may cause individuals 
to be doubters at times, may make some doubters always; 
but doubt is not man's normal, healthful, happy condition. 
It may be the inevitable state for a season of some earnest 
minds in their developings and struggles and upward 
progress, and the honest doubter may be more reverent, 
really more religious than many a holder of a traditional 
faith, but in itself and as a permanency no one could 
desire it. Man does not say, "Lord, I believe; help me 
to disbelieve." His yearning is for belief, for a positive, 
cheering, strengthening faith. For that the human spirit 
is formed, and to that it instinctively tends. The little 
child has faith. Its first religion is all fqsith; sweet, 
unquestioning faith in its father and mother, who are to it 
the visible divine providence, the manifested tenderness of 
God, the earliest mediators and connecting ties between 
its soul and the heavenly Father; and man must have 
faith if he would be in harmony with himself and with 
the universe. His cry, the fervent cry of our common 
humanity, is, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." 
As an able thinker of the Roman Catholic Church, the late 
Dr. Cummings, says, "Faith is the health of the spiritual 
man," and man does not attain to perfect health of mind, 
heart, and soul until with childlike trust he believes, 
confides, in God. That is the true position of the human 
soul. 

And here we see the service which a church should 



THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



37 



seek to render to man, namely, to help him in believing, to 
aid him in attaining a gladdening, inspiring faith, a faith 
that shall satisfy the mind and meet the might} hunger of 
the heart. This life-journey of purs is a momentous one, 
this life-conflict is often terrific. We have to do with stern 
realities, with passions, temptations, sins, with joys that 
thrill and with sorrows that rend, and the church that 
would help us must come to tis with realities, with substan- 
tial verities, with power to make us calm, true, and strong. 

Does the Unitarian Church come with such power? 
Can it render this service to man? I believe it can, and 
does. 

I do not, of course, assert or imply that other churches 
can not render it also. Heaven forbid such narrowness 
and injustice. Myriads of minds are there which they 
help in the upward course. Let them help all they can, 
and the Father's blessing attend them. 

But there are persons whom they fail to reach, whose 
doubts they do not remove, whose faith they do not 
quicken, and among these are many to whom the Unita- 
rian Church can render most important aid. Regarding, 
as I do, the Unitarian view of Christianity, of pure, unde- 
fined religion, as the nearest approximation to the truth as 
it is in Jesus, and the fairest, fullest interpretation of it. I 
believe, necessarily, that it is fitted to help all minds, and 
that ultimately its beneficent influence will be universally 
felt and acknowledged. But there are many whom it may 
reach at once and directly, to whom it will come as comes 
the beautiful dawn, filling the heaven with light and glory, 
filling the heart with hope and gladness, making the patb 
of duty clear and luminous, giving new interest to life and 
throwing an auroral radiance over the grave. May the 
spirit of truth and love guide me as I attempt to unfold 



38 THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 

the faith so precious to them and us, and, as we think, so 
freighted with blessings for all. 

THE DIVINE UNITY. 

We believe in God, the one, the only God. "Hear, O 
Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." "This is life 
eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and 
Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." To us there is but 
one God. 

In making this positive affirmation of our belief in the 
unity of God, we would not assert nor imply that other 
Christians, Christians of Trinitarian views, do not believe in 
the divine unity; we would not impute to them belief in three 
Gods instead of one God. The language used in some of 
their formulas, at first view, would seem clearly to present 
the idea of tritheism, as in the Athanasian Creed, "There 
is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and 
another of the Holy Ghost; the Father eternal, the Son 
eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal." Some expound- 
ers of these formulas, moreover, have used illustrations, 
nay, have made positive statements which seem to mean 
tritheism or to mean nothing; but as such unguarded and 
extreme statements are disclaimed by careful thinkers, and 
as the authoritative standards emphatically declare, what- 
ever may be their expressions about tri-personality, and 
however perplexing such expressions may be to plain men 
and women, unaccustomed to scholastic subtleties, that they 
mean to teach the essential unity of the Supreme Being, 
we would attribute no other thought or purpose to them. 
Far be it from us to do our fellow-Christians the wrong of 
imputing to them what they positively disclaim. 

But from all such "tri- personal" statements we shrink 



THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



Vj 



as confused, confusing, and imscriptural. The Litany in 
die Book of Common Prayer is a wonderful composition. 
In depth, pathos, and comprehensiveness, it commends 
itself to the general heart; but in what utter contrast to 
the Lord's Prayer are some of its invocations! The word 
of Jesus is, "When ye pray, say, Our Father," not, "O 
holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity." He presents to us 
always and only the One, as the object of supreme adora- 
tion, and Him he would have us address in the language 
of the heart, not in the terms of scholastic philosophy. 

Of course we are not to attempt to limit or fathom the 
illimitable and unfathomable recesses and depths of the 
divine nature, or by any sharp definitions circumscribe 
the divine personality. But the divine unity we must 
reverence and keep unimpaired, clinging to it as clung 
patriarchs and prophets, who saw it w r ritten by the hand 
of God in letters of light upon the starry heavens, and 
inscribed by the same hand upon the human soul. We 
believe, then, in the one God, in whom we live and move 
and have our being, the all-comprehending, all-pervading, 
all-sustaining One. We hold fast with unrelaxing grasp to 
the sublime monotheism of Moses and of Christ. " Hear, 
O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord." 

Such is our belief in the one God. If it be incomplete, 
or defective, may He, by his gracious Spirit, amend and fill 
it out. We want to believe aright, to have our belief so 
just to the infinite One, and so deep and firm, that it shall 
anchor our souls immovably to Him. 

THE DIVINE FATHERHOOD. 

We believe in the Fatherhood of God. "When ye 
pray, say, Our Father." Father! dear and sacred name! 



40 



THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



Would that we could once hear it uttered as Jesus uttered 
it; then should we in some measure apprehend its signifi- 
cance, its comprehensiveness, and infinite tenderness. No 
coldly-theological term was it to him, expressive of some 
metaphysical distinction in the Deity, but his heart's name 
of the all-loving One. 

We believe that God is the Father every where and 
always, feeling for every soul a Father's yearning; follow- 
ing it every moment through all the vicissitudes of its 
existence in time and in eternity, with a Father's kindly 
care; giving or withholding, chastening or rewarding, as 
he sees best, but ordering all discipline with an eye keen 
with a Father's solicitude, soft with a Father's tenderness, 
and evermore intent upon the real good, the holiness and 
happiness of his child. 

We believe that God is our Father, the Father of all, 
and the belief is infinitely precious. If it be not as deep, 
living, comprehensive as it should be — and what mortal 
faith has ever approximated to the divine reality, which, 
once discerned, would illumine life with celestial light, and 
give peace, joy ineffable— may He deepen, broaden, ani- 
mate it, that it may fill our hearts and transform our whole 
being. 

THE CHARACTER AND MISSION OF JESUS. 

We believe *in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, man's 
heaven-appointed Teacher, Friend, Redeemer. The depths 
of his nature we presume not to fathom; no plummet has 
ever sounded them, and the wiser, the better the world be- 
comes, the deeper that nature is found to be. The mystery 
of its connection with the Father we attempt not to solve. 
The relation of any soul to the Infinite is a profound and 



THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



41 



solemn mystery, which revering faith may apprehend, but 
no understanding can fully comprehend. If so deep and 
awe-inspiring the mystery of the union of the humblest 
soul with God, how much more, Infinitely more, of the 
grandest, holiest, tenderest, and gentlest soul that ever 
inhabited and glorified mortal frame. 

Jesus comes to us in the Scriptures and in his life as a 
man, as one touched with the sense of our infirmities, 
tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin ; as the man, 
the man Christ Jesus, but such a man as no other in the 
peerlessness of his character, in the grandeur, the wide 
reach, the deathless influence of his appointed work. His 
humanity is evident, but that humanity is all radiant with 
divinity. No Arian theory satisfies our thoughts of Jesus 
or answers our earnest questionings in regard to his won- 
derful being. The indwelling presence in Jesus is not of 
angel or super-angel, but of Him who is the life of all life, 
earthly, angelic, seraphic. When, in our yearnings and 
gropings, our achings of heart, our griefs, our joys, our 
hopes and aspirations, we take the proffered hand of Jesus, 
to be led by him, it is to be led, not to cherub or arch- 
angel, but to the Father of our spirits, of all spirits, his 
Father and our Father, his God and our God. And he 
leads us to the Father because it is the Father's Spirit which 
fills, illumines, glorifies, and perfects his being, rendering it 
divinely beautiful and giving to him a power of love and 
holiness that makes him Mediator, Reconciler, Redeemer. 

And how does he effect his redeeming work? Not 
through any appeasing of divine wrath by bloody sacri 
— the Father has no wrath requiring to be thus appeased; 
not through any softening of the divine heart, making it 
willing to forgive — that heart was always full to overflow- 
ing with pardoning love, ready to pour in its gracious, 

4 



42 



THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



healing, reviving waters wherever hearts were open to 
receive them ; but through his melting, cleansing, winning 
power over the heart of man, opening that heart to the 
divine grace and awakening its yearning for the Father's 
blessing. From every word of the Saviour's lips, from 
every deed of his life, exhaled the pure, sweet aroma of 
reconciling love; and sure are we, that, whenever he is 
seen as he was and is, in his own beautiful personality, all 
hearts will be won to him as to humanity's best friend and 
the soul's true leader, through duty's ways, to home and 
God. 

This is our faith in Jesus, and dear is it as a mother's 
love, and fair as the immortal hope that cheers the dying 
bed and beckons the soul on to blessedness. If it fail in 
any way to apprehend the radiant beauty of his character 
or the significance of his mission, may God correct, ex- 
pand, and vitalize it. 

THE PRESENCE AND POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

We believe in the Holy Spirit. Of its personality, as 
distinct from the Father's, we know nothing, and the vol- 
ume of inspiration, as we understand it, affirms nothing; 
but in its reality as the divine Spirit, as our Father's Spirit,, 
and in its readiness to visit and illumine every soul of man,, 
we most fully believe, and with fervent gratitude for the 
privilege of believing. Its pure, calm light can never be 
extinguished nor exhausted. Every soul may open itself 
to the divine luminary, and its radiance is only the greater: 
every soul may close itself to it, and it still shines serenely 
on. It is a cheering and enkindling faith, that the divine 
Spirit thus draws nigh to the human and invites it to enter 
into communion. Ah! without it, how could prayer be 



THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



43 



real, and religion experimental and vital-? May a living, 
personal experience enable us to realize its blessedness. 

HUMAN NATURE. 

We believe in man. We know from inw ard experien< e 
and from observation, that he often sadly w anders in error 
and sinks deep in sin; but still we believe in him, because 
he is a child of God, the heir of immortality. God believes 
in him, for He loves him, and the divine love attests belief 
and hope. Jesus believed in him, seeing in the worst of 
human beings a capacity of receiving the divine grace and 
of entering upon that heavenward course, that progression 
in truth and good, which has beginning but knows no end. 
We do not realize how fully Jesus believed in man, until we 
remind ourselves or are reminded that he had words of 
love and hope for the veriest outcast. Pharisaism might 
scorn and bigotry hate ; Jesus had scorn and hate for 
none. And wdiat faith in man he manifested in giving, 
not to the gifted and cultured few, but to plain, unlettered 
men, to the common people, to the men and women repre- 
sentative of our general humanity, sublimest truths — truths 
that transcend the sun in brightness, and shall continue in 
undiminishing luster after it has ceased to shine — and invit- 
ing them, in inviting all, to enter into filial union with the 
Most High. 

We believe in man. Sometimes it is very hard to 
believe in this or that man — he is so covetous, base, false, 
or so self-righteous and unloving; and in this or that 
woman — she is so frivolous, so immersed in fashion, and 
so insincere; but when we remember that the divine 
image, however obscured and defaced, still remains on the 
plate of their souls, and remember that the Father still 



44 THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



loves them, and remember, too, that he still loves us not- 
withstanding our errors and sins — greater, perhaps, to the 
eyes of impartial justice than theirs — we hold fast to our 
belief in man. 

God help us to attest the depth and power of our belief 
by a broader charity, a tenderer sympathy, a more active 
beneficence. Let warm hearts, open hands, kindly deeds, 
exhaustless patience, and undying hope show our fellow- 
men that we believe in them and love them. 

THE BIBLE. 

"We believe in the Bible. It is to us the most precious 
of books, the book of books, addressed to our reason, 
conscience, and faith; in which good men, truth - loving, 
honest men, inspired by the Holy Spirit, have given to us 
sacred histories, far-reaching prophesies, soul-moving relig- 
ious poems; have unfolded the laws of the divine Provi- 
dence in creation and redemption, raised the curtain from 
the spiritual world, and disclosed to us the all-loving heart 
of God. 

We believe in the Bible as a book to be thoughtfully 
read, reverently studied, in the spirit and love of truth. 
Too profound respect have we for the sacred volume to 
think for a moment that it would have us come to its 
perusal with closed minds, or minds fearful of letting in 
upon its pages the full light of truth, from whatever quarter 
the light may come. The more light the better. Like 
those chemical paintings which at first seem fragmentary 
and incomplete, but become symmetrical and beautiful as 
the light grows stronger, the truths of the Bible reveal more 
and more of their divine beauty in proportion to the 
intensity of the light thrown upon them by an ever-ad- 



TIIK FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



45 



vancing Christian civilization. Great scepticism undoubt- 
edly there is about the teachings of the Bible, no small 
part of which scepticism is owing to false claims] claims 
that it makes not for itself, to narrow interpretations, nd 
to the jealous apprehensions manifested by some - 
professed friends in regard to reason and science as if 
essentially irreligious and atheistic; but, notwithstanding all 
doubts and difficulties, never were its truths so distinctly 
seen, nor their power so widely felt as now. The clearer 
the atmosphere the brighter the shining of the stars: the 
clearer the moral atmosphere, the brighter the shining of 
the star-like truths of revelation. 

We believe in the Bible as a book to be used, to be 
made a spiritual companion and friend, not as a show- 
volume to be handsomely bound and placed upon a cen- 
• ter-table to remain there unopened except when a minister 

is a guest in the home, or some sad and solemn occasion 
calls for its consolations. 

We believe in making this ever-living book, alike ven- 
erable in its age and winning in its immortal youth, the 
book of life; not in keeping it as an amulet or charm to be 
resorted to in times of peril, as by the alarmed passenger, 
mentioned, I think, by Alexander Campbell, who, when the 
storm became terrific and the vessel was in imminent 
danger of foundering, opened his Bible and read with 
eagerness, not the devout, faith -inspiring psalms of David 
or the soul-sustaining words of Jesus, but the list of names 
in the first chapter of the first book of Chronicles. 

We believe in the Bible. May the spirit of truth help 
us more and more to discern its deep and varied signifi- 
cance, to penetrate farther into its ric h mines, to appreciate 
better its gracious revealings, and to apply its instructions 
more faithfully to daily life. 



46 THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



THE CHURCH. 

We believe in the church. "But in which one of the 
many?" In all, I might reply, so far as they revere and 
obey God and have the spirit and truth of Jesus, for where 
reverence and obedience, the love of truth and charity are, 
there the church of Christ is. It is his church in which we 
believe, with its sacred ordinances, its hallowed and hallow- 
ing associations, its inexhaustible fountains of spiritual life 
and power; the only really, truly, Catholic church, not sac- 
erdotal, but fraternal; a fellowship, not a hierarchy ; lovingly 
inclusive, not harshly exclusive; which welcomes to its com- 
munion all who desire to possess the spirit and obey the com- 
mands of Jesus; which makes life and character, not formal 
observances and verbal professions, the proof of disciple- 
ship; of which all true-hearted, devout, loving Christians 
of every name are members ; aye, and the unnamed 
faithful ones, too, unnamed in earthly records, not in the 
Father's unerring book of remembrance. That is the 
church in which we believe, which can be monopolized * 
by no sect, state, nation, country, age, but is the all -com- 
prehending, ever-living church of God, the heavenly 
Father, into which it is our faith that the Saviour will 
ultimately transfigure the great brotherhood of humanity. 

We believe in the church of Christ. Life is too real, 
too earnest; we meet too many tear-furrowed faces; Ave 
hear too many sighs and sobs from anguished and break- 
ing hearts ; there are too many grassy mounds over the 
forms of the dearly loved, for us to feel any special interest 
in questions of robes and vestments. No thought of bands 
or cassock, we imagine, came to Jesus when he uttered his 
Sermon on the Mount, or to his great apostle when stand- 
ing on Mars' Hill. But we trust that we cherish, in com- 



THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 47 

mon with all earnest workers, the desire to see the chur< h 
arrayed in her robe of righteousness, wearing every where 
the beautiful garments of love and charity. God help us 
by greater obedience to his commands, by heartier a< 1 ept- 
ance of its spirit, by warmer kindness and more con 
attention to the lowly, the friendless, and the erring, to 
attest our belief and increase its power. 

LOVE THE SOUL OF RELIGION. 

We believe in religion, and that its essence is not rite 
nor form, but love — love to God and love to man; the 
love which is the life of piety, the vital principle and 
inspiration of beneficence, the spirit and law of righteous- 
ness, the condition, test, and proof of right being and right 
doing, the real and only true bond of fellowship between 
man and man, and of the inseparable union of man with 
his heavenly Father. We believe that every sincere lover of 
God and man, of whatever race, country, or clime, of 
whatever communion or creed, is dear to the all-loving 
Saviour; and we believe that Christianity, through which 
religion is thus presented in its essential character, spiritual 
beauty, and moral power, and forever distinguished from 
superstition and formalism, is divinely adapted to fill the 
heart with love and make the earth bloom as the garden 
of the Lord. 

O that we may see with clear eye religion in her 
beauty and feel her gladdening, transforming power in our 
hearts ! 

IMMORTALITY. 

We believe in immortality as brought to light by Jesus; 
not the dim r shadowy, gloomy abode of phantoms, but the 



4 8 



THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



world of reality, where live and love the purified ones of 
earth, clothed in spiritual bodies and rejoicing in the benefi- 
cent activities of the realm of light, "the land of the leal;" 
and we believe in that world not as far removed but as 
near — how near God knows — and needing only the spir- 
itual eye to be opened and the spiritual ear unsealed to 
discern its beauty and catch its melodies. Father, grant 
us the loving heart, the faithful spirit, the seeing eye, the 
hearing ear, that we may feel the strong attractive power 
of the world of light and live as its children ! 

THE. HEAVENLY REUNION. 

We believe that, under the moral government of God, 
retribution is just, impartial, inevitable, and that there can 
be no real, enduring happiness until there is full obedience 
to his laws. We believe, moreover, that through the win- 
ning influence of the Saviour and the renewing power of 
the Spirit, every prodigal will ultimately be brought, peni- 
tent and contrite, to the Father's heart, that the mediatorial 
work will find its glorious consummation in the ingathering: 
of all souls to unite, with gladness and gratitude, in the 
song of the heavenly harvest-home. 

May we all feel to the 'depths of our being the mighty 
spiritual force that seeks to win us to holiness and God. 

HEART -FELT FAITH. 

Finally, we believe, as some one has emphatically said, 
in belief, not in make-belief, regarding the strong convic- 
tion, the clear perception, the cordial acceptance of a 
single truth with faithful performing of the duties involved 
as of more worth than careless, traditional assent to a ream' 



THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



49 



of formulas and confessions. He who eame ' 
one truth and faithfully discharges one duty will ultimately 
attain and perform all. That one petition of the poor 
publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner," sent out from 
a heart agonized with a sense of sin and yearning for 
divine love and pardon, went direct to the inmost heaven 
and brought back peace, strength, hope, trust. His 
belief. The elaborate address of the self-satisfied Phari 
to the Saviour's keen eye, revealed only traditional and 
illusory make-belief. 

May the Holy Spirit, the spirit of life and earnest! 
aid us in believing, and save us from the illusions and delu- 
sions of make-believing. 

I have now given to you what seems to me a fair state- 
ment of the faith of a Unitarian Christian. 

I do not say of all Unitarians, for there are the wide 
differences among us which the terms "Conservative" and 
"Radical" indicate; and doubtless to some, perhaps many, 
the representation would not be satisfactory. But it is my 
faith and the faith of many, of a great majority I think, of 
those who are known as Unitarian Christians. To us it is 
a precious faith. Sacred memories cluster around it. ( Hir 
minds find satisfaction in it and our hearts are comforted 
by it. A good faith, it seems to us, to live by and to die 
by. We thank our Father and his dear Son for it. and 
only regret that we have not been more faithful to its 
promises, duties, and inspirations. 



THE FAITH OF A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN. 



"Press on, press on ! ye sons of light, 
Untiring in your holy fight, 
Still treading each temptation down, 
And battling for a higher crown. 

"Press on, press on ! through toil and woe, 
With calm resolve to triumph go; 
And make each dark and threatening ill 
Yield but a higher glory still. 

"Press on, press on ! still look in faith 
To Him who conquereth sin and death : 
Then shall ye hear his word, ' Well done ! ' 
True to the last, press on, press on." 

William Gaskell. 



SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 



Or, the Church and Society of the It'ii/kk. 



PALM-SUNDAY SUGGESTIONS. 

" For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself." — 
Romans xiv. 7. 

This strong, comprehensive declaration of the apostle 
has a two-fold application, Godward and manward. God- 
ward, for, as St. Paul says, " Whether we live, we live unto 
the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord. "* We 
are not our own in any absolute, independent way ; we hold 
not life or possession in fee-simple, but as stewards of God, 
to whom we are accountable for right use of life, talent, all 
that life covers and implies. Manward, because we are 
so closely bound with our kind, with the great human 
brotherhood, that we can not isolate ourselves, but dire* tly 
or indirectly must influence and affect, more or less, for 
good or ill, all of the great family. 

"No one liveth to himself, and no man dieth to him- 
self." If a man lives — not merely exists, but lives — lives a 
real, genuine, noble life, he lives that life not for himself 
alone, but for others, for how many others neither he nor 
any one else can tell. If he dies, dies morally, spiritually, 
becomes mean, selfish, base, corrupt, he dies not for himself 



52 



SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 



only, but for others, brings two-fold death, the death of 
hope and happiness in those who love him and desire his 
real good, the death of virtue in those whom his ill conduct 
and wrong spirit lead astray. 

"No man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to him- 
self." The good and the evil in him survive — the evil, we 
may hope, not forever, because it belongs to the realm of 
darkness and falsity, the realm of negation, and therefore 
of final evanescence; but the good forever, because be- 
longing to the kingdom of light and truth, the kingdom of 
affirmation, of the substantial and enduring. 

"The survival of the fittest" is a doctrine very promi- 
nent now in natural history and science. There is a pro- 
found truth in the doctrine, and one which finds many 
illustrations in the mental, moral, and spiritual as well as in 
the material world. In the mental world: Great thinkers 
survive. Centuries roll by, empires rise and fall, national- 
ities appear and vanish, civilizations culminate and decline, 
but the great thinkers survive all alternations, appearing 
and re-appearing in the profound thoughts which they have 
sent abroad, and which live, are charged with immortality, 
because they are fittest to live. Plato and Aristotle, by 
eminence the thinkers of Greece, representatives of the 
two dominant schools of thought, and of the classes of 
mind that those schools indicate, and of. the philosophic 
systems in which those minds find expression, those two 
great men have been thinkers for the world no less than 
for their own land and their own age. Their thoughts 
and their modes of thought have survived because fit to 
survive, being instinct with vital power. 

All large, noble thoughts, all grand truths survive. They 
enter the general mind, enriching, expanding, ennobling the 
mental life of the world. The eminent lawyers, the great 



SURVIVAL OF THE FITTI ST. 53 

jurists of Rome live to-day in the laws and jurisprudence 
of Europe and America. No l re; it thought is lorn to 
die. 

The moral -world no less than the mental abounds 
in illustrative instances. Great characters survive. 
Bunsen says, " Personality is the lever of the world's history." 
What a marvelous power a great personality is! How 
living, how effective, not for an age, but for the ages! Prof. 
Hedge says in his thought-stirring book, "Ways of the 
Spirit:" "Abraham is the first distinct historic personality. 
Not the first historic personage, for Egyptian history w as 
old and had dragged the chain of its successive dynasties 
through long centuries when the great Chaldean pit< hed 
his tent on the plains of Moab. But Egyptian history in 
all those ages presents no defined individuality, no char c- 
ter sufficiently marked to point a moral or adorn a 1 
The dynasties evoked by the Egyptologer out of the dim 
past, like the phantom succession of Scottish kings evoked 
from the dim future by the witches in Macbeth, 'Come 
like shadows, so depart.'* .... The first defined per- 
sonality, the first live figure, the first blood-warm individual 
known to history is also the first reformer, the first mono- 
theist, the patriarch Abraham." 

A great personality that was, a noble, majestic charac- 
ter! How it towers aloft in solitary grandeur! How 
measureless its influence, revered as it has been by millions 
upon millions of the race, Jews, "Mohammedans, Christians, 
Semitic and Japhetic, of all surroundings and of every 
grade of culture, from the unlettered Bedouin reverently 
kneeling on the sands of Arabia, with face turned toward 
Mecca, to sages of rarest wisdom like Moses Mendels- 
sohn, and richly-endowed scientists like Sir [saac Newton. 

A great personality is vital all through. Forever power 



54 



SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 



goes forth from it. Let but the hem of its garment be 
lovingly and reverently touched, and that power is felt 
vibrating, thrilling through every mental and moral fiber 
and nerve. 

There is a day in the ecclesiastical calendar which is 
observed from year to year in many churches of Roman 
Catholic, Episcopalian, and other communions with pecu- 
liar solemnities. Palm-trees are brought in and palm- 
branches waved in commemoration of a memorable event. 
Palm Sunday, it is called, in remembrance of that day, long 
centuries ago, on which, amid the shouts and hallelujahs of 
a vast multitude, wrought by patriotic hopes and religious 
longings to wildest enthusiasm, entered into the city of 
Jerusalem one who, in less than a week thereafter, was to 
die in agony amid the scoffs and jeers of a disappointed, 
maddened throng, singing no hallelujah-notes, no anthem- 
strains, but shrieking forth the cruel passion-cry, " Crucify 
him, crucify him !" 

"False, miserably false emblems," says some one, "those 
victory-presaging palms proved." But, good friend, were 
they false? Pause a moment and consider. Perhaps you 
may find that they were wonderfully significant, spiritually 
expressive, and beautifully prophetic of the victor-path of 
the great Teacher and Leader ! Estimated by the hopes, 
judged by the expectations of the Jerusalem masses, ready, 
as the promiscuous throngs of any other city, to curse or to 
crown as passions bid, those palm-branches sadly failed of 
all true symbolism. But when we have to do with great 
events, big with destiny, with lives that are to mold myriads 
of lives, we must, if we would find emblematic significance, 
true symbolism, look elsewhere than to the thin, superficial 
soil of passion and caprice; we must go down, down into 
the depths, where deep cries unto deep, and the great 



SURVIVAL OF TIIL I I 'J "I I >T. 



55 



Nature around appeals to the great Nature within. Then 
with the eye of the soul open and its ear all attcnt, the 
mystic correspondence which unites us to the whole universe 
is felt, and its rich, full symbolism is dis< erned. Then the 
Palm-branches, not as waved by capri< ioys crowds, but as 
borne by majestic Nature, solemn Sibyl, revealing Proph- 
etess, are seen to be grandest, truest emblems, symbolizing 
victory real and enduring. 

And how marvelous that victory was! To human eye 
and thought, regarding Jesus through the days succeei 
Palm Sunday, following him through the varying s< enes of 
Gethsemane loneliness and spiritual conflict, of arrest by 
rude soldiery, of abandonment by terrified friends, of be- 
trayal by treachery, of condemnation by relentless hate, 
and of agonizing death — to the eye and thought thus 
companying him from Sunday to Friday, how .incredible — 
not incredible only, impossible — would it seem that tliat 
betrayed, deserted, crucified One could become the 
author of a great religion, the spiritual guide, friend, 
comforter of myriads upon myriads of men and women — 
their hope, their confidence, their joy! The most mar- 
velous of miracles would seem less miraculous, the most 
stupendous exercise of supernatural power less incredible. 
But man's impossibility was God's possibility. There was 
beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment 
of praise for the spirit of heaviness. From death came 
life, defeat was transformed into victory — victory so com- 
plete, so gladdening, that you may well bring j 'aim- 
branches, not palm -branches only, but all of Nature's 
grandest emblems, to symbolize the great triumph. The 
Christ survived, the religion of the Christ survived: and 
because they were the fittest to survive. 

" Personality is indeed the lever of the world's histon . " 



56 



SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 



And because the personality of Jesus, our Leader and 
Saviour, was the grandest, the noblest, the most winning, 
and the most divine, it has moved the world's history 
more powerfully, more resistlessly, than any other, than all 
other personalities combined. Xot a human God, as medi- 
evalism feigned him, but a divine man, as the profoundest 
thought, and the warmest, the most revering affection of 
the highest civilization clearly discern and gratefully accept 
him. 

Through what floods of fire and water has that personality 
passed, what perils it has survived! The great empire, 
whose power at the time of the crucifixion was felt from 
the Atlantic Ocean to the Euphrates, whose legions' 
measured steps were heard from Britain to India, making 
three continents tremble, that colossal empire fell, and in 
its fall, like the dying Samson, pulled down with it the 
great temple of civilization. Rome fell, Constantinople 
fell, Northern barbarism and paganism rolled like a deluge 
over earth's fairest, loveliest scenes, the volcanic forces of 
mediaeval superstition threw their dust and ashes and 
burning lava around, the earthquake passions of fierce, 
unrestrained humanity tore asunder every social fabric; 
w T orldly ambition and ecclesiastical love of dominion sacri- 
legiously took to themselves the sacred name, stealing 
heaven's livery to serve the devil in; false philosophy in 
Christ's name, supplanted his principles and truths by 
harsh, cruel dogmas; formalism set aside the spiritual 
worship which he enjoined, metaphysical scholasticism filled 
the atmosphere with blinding dust, and not star-dust either; 
tyranny's leagues unholily called themselves holy alliances — 
every thing conceivable has been done to pervert the re- 
ligion of Jesus and make his>name unacceptable to the 
aching, longing heart of humanity. But in spite of fire 



SURVIVAL OF Till-; FITTKST. 



57 



and flood, of perversion and misrepresentation, of bigotry 
and tyrannous wrong in church and state, he and his re 
ligion have survived, and not only have survived, but have- 
gone on conquering and to conquer, leading civilization, 
changing and ennobling society, effecting grandesi n-ron- 
ciliations between God and man, between man and man. 

" Personality is the lever of the world's history.'' So 
wonder that that personality, luminous with divine light, 
fragrant with heavenly love, transparent in truth, firm rid 
solid in integrity and justice, beautiful in tenderness and 
compassionateness, all-winning in sympathy and charity, 
has moved the world, as no other has moved it, through 
every fiber of its being, through every power of its mind, 
every affection of its heart, every aspiration of its soul. 

" Yes, unquestionably, 1 ' 1 hear it whispered, "Jesus and 
his religion have survived through these centuries, and 
because they were fit to survive; but they have done then- 
work — they belong to the Past. " 

Belong to the Past! If I read and interpret history and 
society aright, to no Past have they so completely belonged 
as they belong to this living Present, for never as now did 
the principles and Spirit of Jesus so pervade the world's 
humane and beneficent institutions, never so deeply and so 
widely affect civilization. Never was his religion so free 
from mediaeval accretions as now. Constantly with the 
uplifting and Christianization of society mediaeval ac< ra- 
tions are dropping off, and as they drop off the religion 
appears and will appear more and more in its beautiful 
original character, not as harsh dogma and petrifying 
form, but as animating, purifying, ennobling, transfiguring 
spirit, principle, life. And as the religion is more vividly 
revealed in its original and divine simplicity and purity, it 
is gladly recognized as the most precious palimpsest, and 



5§ 



SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 



the character of Jesus stands out clear, distinct, full-orbed, 
in its beauty, grandeur, and rare attractive power, the 
personality of personalities, the Son of man transfigured 
into the Son of God. 

As with mental eye men view that character, and as they 
reflect upon the sources of its greatness and deathless 
influence, they will appreciate more thoroughly the all- 
important fact, the fundamental truth, that the great end 
of religion is to bless the world in building up true, noble, 
ennobling Christ-like characters, in helping men to live 
genuine lives, lives accordant with the everlasting princi- 
ples of truth, rectitude, and honor. Be it ever borne in 
mind that God is most honored, and his children of the 
great human family most aided, when men live Christ-like 
lives, when they do all in their power to lessen the bur- 
dens of their fellow-travelers, to diminish temptation, to 
strengthen virtuous principles, to make society a broth- 
erhood, and fellowship a real friendship — in a word, when, 
with the divine help never withheld from the earnest 
seeker, they form characters that rest upon the granite 
foundations of the Sermon on the Mount, when from day 
to day they live lives that are fragrant with the spirit which 
prompts men to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to 
visit the sick and the prisoner, and which draws to itself 
the blessing of Him who said. " Inasmuch as you have 
done it unto one of the least of these, my disciples, ye 
have done it unto me." 

That is the religion, which has survived because fittest 
to survive, and which will survive — the Religion of the 
Future. And as it is the grand distinction of humanity's 
great Leader that he willingly, lovingly, heartily identi- 
fied himself with the lowliest of the children of God, the 
humblest of men. so that Church, that Society, will prove 



SURVIVAL OF Till; FITTKST. 



59 



itself most thoroughly and enduringly the Church and 
Society of the Future, which, being pervaded, permeated 
by his self-denying spirit, shall do its utmost to exalt fellow- 
ship into real friendship and friendship into that genuine 
Christian brotherhood, whose cheering presence and inspir- 
ing influence are most effective in transforming earth into 
the garden of the Lord. 



SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 



" How rich the blessings, Oh, my God, 

Which teach this grateful heart to glow ! 
How kindly poured and free bestowed 
The rivers of Thy mercy flow ! 

" How calmly rolls the sea of life ! 
Secure in Thine immortal trust 
The soul has hushed her secret strife, 
Nor longer shudders at the dust. 

S( Though sorrow's cloud awhile o'ercast 
The dawn of earthly hope and joy, 
She knows that it must soon be passed, 
And will unveil eternity. 

" Then virtue's humble toil and prayer 

Shall stand acknowledged at Thy throne, 
Triumphant over earthly care, 

And the blest record Thou wilt own." 



J. Roscoe. 



OLIVET'S TWO SIDES. 
Gethsemane and Bethany. 



"And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the Mount 
of Olives." — Matthew xxvi, 30. 

" Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, 
and saith unto the disciples, sit ye here, while I go and pray 
yonder. — Matthew xxvi, 36. 

"And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his 
hands and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed 
them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." — 
Luke xxiv, 50, 51. 

How many intensely interesting associations cluster 
around that mountain - ridge to the east of Jerusalem 
known as the Mount of Olives! How many events are 
connected with it of vital importance, morally and spir- 
itually, to the world! How many scenes did it witness 
full of pathos and of grandeur ! 

Two of these scenes are presented in the passag - 
which I have brought together to form our text this 
morning — the anguish scene in Gethsemane^ the ascension 
scene near Bethany. Both places belong to the Mount of 
Olives, the first being at its foot on the west near Jeru- 
salem, the other higher up the mountain and on its eastern 
side. Not far apart are the places; in a short time one 



62 



olivet's two sides. 



could walk from one to the other. But how widely removed 
each from the other in the nature of the events which have 
rendered them forever memorable. In the one we have 
mental agony, the keenest known by any one dwelling in 
mortal form; anguish of soul, and that soul the purest, the 
noblest that ever inhabited earth, the only one free from 
imperfection and sin, celestial, divine, which by heavenly 
sympathy entered with exquisite tenderness into human 
sufferings, took upon itself humanity's heavy burden, 
sweetly submitted to trials providentially appointed for 
the fulfillment of the divine will and the redemption of 
man from the fearful power of sin, trials so keen as to 
cause the sweat as it were great drops of blood to fall 
from his brow. 

Ah, Gethsemane, fearful was the agony known in thy 
lone garden by the meek and innocent One! There did 
the mystery of suffering culminate. Always mysterious is 
it as permitted in the realms of the infinitely good God, 
especially the suffering endured by the innocent; but there 
was it the mystery of mysteries, for the sufferer was the 
holy One, who knew no sin, and whose whole being was 
in perfect harmony with the Father's will. And yet in 
proportion to his holiness was the intensity of the anguish 
endured. How strange appears it that he should have 
suffered at all! To our fond, revering love it seems that 
for him, the kind, devout, ever-obedient Son of God, the 
pilgrimage through life should have been smooth and easy, 
sun-lighted and made fragrant by flowers of paradise, and 
that its close should have been illumined by light brighter 
than the radiance of the noon -day sun, and gladdened by 
the triumphant strains of angel choirs. But no; it pleased 
the All-Wise that it should be a pilgrimage of poverty and 
pain, marked by privation and sharp limitations, made 



olivet's two sides. 



lustrous, indeed, by love, before whose brightness the all- 
glowing sun grows pale, and rendered beautiful by deeds 
of kindness exhaling fragrance such as the Rowers ol 
paradise never knew, yet to human eye a pilgrimage 
and dark, according to the judgment of human wisdom 
and the measures of earthly ambition, knowing only difl p 
pointment and failure, and brought to a premature and 
untimely end. 

Oh, Gethsemane! when amid thy deep shades that pure 
and perfect one knelt, prostrated to earth by anguish, the 
anguish of a soul large enough and tender enough to take 
humanity in its loving embrace and to be willing to die for 
its redemption from sin and woe, it seemed indeed, as the 
Saviour said, as if it were the hour and the power of dark- 
ness. Then the spirit of darkness appeared to have gained 
the supremacy, to rule with unchecked sway. Before its 
malignant scepter truth and goodness were crushed to 
earth, the best of beings led to cruel death, and the holiest 
of causes doomed to annihilation. Then Satan seemed to 
have usurped the throne of universal dominion, and to be 
left unrestrained to do his work of woe. The hour and 
the power of darkness indeed, to mortal eye the darkest 
hour, the hour most fraught with wretchedness and despair 
that the world had ever known, in which hope herself with 
breaking heart might lay her down to die. 

But thick and deep as was the gloom of Gethsemane, 
perplexing as was the mystery of goodness crushed and 
wickedness triumphant, God had not been dethroned, the 
spirit of darkness had not grasped the scepter of om: 
tence. The hour of its power was the hour of its ruin. In 
wreaking its vindictiveness upon the spotless Son of God, 
it showed its utter malignity, and this it was, in the divine 
providence, permitted to show not only to disclose its 



64 



olivet's two sides. 



essential vileness, but also to reveal the majesty of that 
divine power of life and goodness which w T as willing to be 
humiliated and prostrated by it, even to the dust, and to 
be placed in the tomb, that from seeming annihilation 
it should arise in strength and beauty, that it might con- 
quer death even in death's royal palace, the sepulcher, and 
by love and holiness overcome sin and wrong on the very 
spot and in the very midst of their triumph. Thus God 
in his ineffable wisdom permits the dark mystery of Geth- 
semane, not for the sake of the mystery, nor that the 
mystery may forever remain dark and insoluble. Oh, no ! 
but that the ascension -light of Bethany may shine upon it 
and make it bright and plain. 

Olivet has its two sides, its western side of Gethsemane 
gloom and its eastern side of ascension glory. Through 
gloom to glory, through trial to triumph, through death to 
life, is God's order of providence for his children, and that 
order is revealed in fullness of purpose, in completeness of 
plan, in the pilgrimage of Him, His beloved Son, the type 
and the manifestation of perfect humanity, who by the 
grace of God tasted death for every man. and through 
sufferings was made perfect as the Captain of their sal- 
vation. 

Jesus, on the memorable night which preceded his cru- 
cifixion, went to the western side of Olivet, to Gethsemane. 
A few hours pass by, and the form in which his holy soul 
dwelt is nailed to the cross and placed in the quiet tomb. 
A few more pass, and that form comes from the tomb 
transfigured by divine power, so changed as to become his 
fitting garment in the realm of immortality. A few days 
pass, the message which he has to communicate to his 
disciples is given, the work which he has to accomplish 
with them in his glorified body is done, the reality of his 



olivet's two sides. 



*5 



new form and sphere of being is deeply, ineffaceable im- 
pressed upon their minds and hearts, life and immortality 
are brought to light to them and, through them, to the 
world, and he goes to the Mount of Olives again; but 
not now to its western side. Oh, no! for him no more 
of Gethsemane gloom, no more trial or tears, no more 
abandonment and pain. To the eastern side he goes, to 
Bethany, not Gethsemane, to the orient of life and glory. 
Very dear to him in his earthly sojourn had Bethany been. 
There he had had sweetest interchange of thought and 
feeling with spiritually-minded, appreciative friends, thither 
he had loved to go, after the excitement of the day. from 
crowds who gathered around him with mingled motives, 
to enjoy the evening hours in communion with that quiet, 
unassuming, refined family whose souls responded to his as 
he spake of the Father and of heaven, of duty and immor- 
tality. There, impelled by the mighty affection for the 
bereaved family which filled his heart, and invited by the 
faith which with sweet trust reposed in his words, he had 
performed his most stupendous miracle. Thither now he 
goes again, leading his little band of disciples, who lovingly 
follow him in awe but not in fear. There he converses 
with them freely, and with the same tenderness and 
thoughtful kindness which characterized his words 
spirit while he was in the earthly form. And oh, how 
deep, how thrilling the interest with which they listened to 
his words, the words of Him, their own dear Friend, Te n her. 
Redeemer, who, as one of their number with such deep 
pathos said, " having loved his own, loved them to the 
end," and who, as they now know, has loved them beyond 
the end, whose personal love for them ceased not when his 
earthly life ended, but continues in all its gentleness and 
winning power now that he is invested with his garment 



66 



olivet's two sides. 



of immortality. The time has come for these precious 
utterances to cease, and for him to give them his parting 
benediction. " He lifted up his hands and blessed them." 
No cold, formal benediction was that, but the going forth 
to them of his own great, divine heart in blessing, the 
bringing down to their hearts the peace and spiritual joy 
with which his was full. 

"And who saith 'I loved once?' 
Xot angels — whose clear eyes love, love, foresee, 

Love, through eternity, 
And by To Love do apprehend To Be. 
Not God, called Love, his noble crown-name, casting 

A light too broad for blasting ! 
The great God changing not from everlasting, 

Saith never, £ I loved once/ 

"Oh, never is 'loved ONCE 3 
Thy word, thou Victim-Christ, misprized friend ! 

Thy cross and cuise may rend, 
But. having loved, Thou lovest to the end. 
This is man's saying — man's. Too weak to move 

One sphered star above, 
Man desecrates the eternal God-word Love 

By his Xo More and Once/' 

And in the very act of blessing them he was parted 
from them. Sweet and holy parting! Thus would every 
earnest and pure heart love to have its dearest and most 
honored friend pass on to the spiritual world, peacefully 
giving its blessing. Precious and fragrant forevermore the 
memory of such a parting, linking, as it does, the translated 
friend with the friend remaining behind. Unutterably, 
infinitely precious such a parting from the friend of friends, 
the great Mediator, who, in his wonderful personality, his 



olivet's two sides. 



67 



glorified humanity, binds the two worlds inseparabl] 
gether, and who has power to bring the mighty blei nj 
down. 

The disciples felt the reality of his benedii tion. 'I he] 
saw him pass away, and knew that he would he no more 
visible to them on earth, but there was no sadness in their 
hearts. Nay, their hearts were full of joy. They felt the 
power of the world to come. To them it had already 
come. The veil was raised, the partition-wall removed, 
the world of immortality made near and real. When they 
saw his cold form after the cruel crucifixion placed in the 
tomb, their souls were dark and gloomy. Then were they 
on the western side of Olivet, then death had the victory; 
but now they have passed to the eastern side where life is 
the conqueror. Then were they in Gethsemane's thick, 
deep gloom, now are they in Bethany's glorious ascen- 
light. For them the mystery is solved, the enigma made 
plain. The suffering which made the garden of Gethsemane 
so dark was permitted, not for its own sake, but that it might 
be the means and occasion of overcoming the power of sin 
and enthroning love and holiness. The night of ( rethsemane 
was permitted and decreed not for Gethsemane, but for the 
glorious ascension-morning. 



olivet's two sides. 



' WEEPING MAY ENDURE FOR THE NIGHT, BUT JOY 
COMETH IN THE MORNING." 

" Deem not that they are blessed alone 
Whose days a peaceful tenor keep ; 
The God, who loves our race, has shown 
A blessing for the eyes that weep. 

" The light of smiles shall fill again 
The lids that overflow with tears ; 
And weary hours of woe and pain 
Are promises of happier years. 

"There is a day of sunny rest 

For every dark and troubled night, 
And Grief may bide an evening guest 
But Joy shall come with early light. 

" And thou, who o'er thy friend's low bier, 
Dost shed the bitter drops like rain, 
Hope that a brighter, happier sphere 
May give him to thy arms again. 

" Nor let the good man's trust depart, 
Though life its common gifts deny, 
Though, with a pierced and bleeding heart, 
And spurned of men, he goes to die. 

"For God hath marked each sorrowing day 
And numbered every secret tear, 
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay 
For all his children suffer here." 

William C. Bryant. 



THE TWO ASPECTS OF THE DIVINE 
PROVIDENCE. 



^'And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, rei; 

and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from 
before their face, and stood behind them : and it came between 
the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was 
a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these : 
so that the one came not near the other all the night." — Exodus 
xiv, 19, 20. 

To the one the mysterious pillar was all cloud and dark- 
ness — repelling, depressing gloom; to the other it was all 
brightness — illumining and gladdening radiance. How 
symbolic this of the divine providence, of the different 
aspects which it presents to the pilgrims of life, the travel- 
ers of earth on their varied and deeply-interesting journey ; 
to some, as the cloudy pillar to the Egyptians, it seems 
gloomy, impenetrable darkness : to others, as to the favored 
Israelites, it seems inspiring brightness. That providence 
not only seems different to different persons, it is different; 
that is, in the widely- varying experiences, in the differing 
proportions of good and ill fortune which it assigns and 
ordains. We hear a great deal said, at times, of the princi- 
ple of compensation. Life, according to some essaj ists 
and moralizers, is a compensation -pendulum, so oicel] 
adjusted with its expanding and contracting metal bars that 



I 



JO TWO ASPECTS OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



it is perfectly fitted for all seasons and climes, and keeps 
perfect time and the same time for all ; thus securing, it 
is asserted, an equal amount on the whole of good and ill, 
of joy and sorrow, to all. 

Very elaborate are some of the essays in which this 
proposition has been presented, this argument maintained; 
essays written in faultless language and printed in clear 
type and on spotless white or delicately-tinted paper: and 
they have been read with delight by refined and highly- 
cultivated men and women sitting in comfortable chairs in 
cosy or elegant rooms before a cheerful fire; and the 
readers have assented to the argument as able and con- 
clusive, and accepted the result as legitimate and sound, 
saying with much satisfaction, as they have closed the 
volume, "Mr. All-right has proved beyond doubt that after 
all, notwithstanding seeming differences, the proportion of 
happiness is essentially the same to all of us/' 

Xot quite so conclusive has seemed the reasoning, not 
so satisfactory the result, to men and women living in 
hovels, wrestling all their lives with poverty and pain, 
finding life from beginning to end a hard struggle for 
bread; or to men and women for whom repeated bereave- 
ments have darkened existence, taken joy and hope from 
home, and made the mortal pilgrimage a dreary, lonely 
walk to the grave. What to them are the fine paper, the 
clear print, the fastidiously-chosen words, the elaborately- 
constructed sentences, when their hearts are desolate and 
their homes are shrouded in gloom, or when they know 
not where to rind food for wife and children ! Give to 
them in their anxieties and soul-weariness the carefully- 
reasoned essay on life's compensations, if you. would have 
them feel that when they asked for bread you gave them a 
stone, and none the less a stone though of finest mar- 



TWO ASPECTS OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE. J I 



ble and exquisitely polished. No, that comp 
theory will not do. It does not square with the fa< ts of 
life. The proportion of good and ill, of happiness Dd 
sorrow, is by no means the same for all. For some there 
is a great deal of light all through their earthly existence; 
for some a great deal of darkness. Think of one blessed 
with devoted, loving, sincerely religious parents, with 
opportunities of intellectual culture, with books and a love 
for them, with remunerative employment, with a beautiful 
home of his own, and with all-animating hope; and then 
think of one with reckless and wretched parents, with no 
opportunities for mental development, with no means 
advancement, with vicious companions, with hard toil 
unenlivened by hope, and what a mockery it seems to talk 
of the proportion of happiness being the same to all 
human beings. We only affront the unfortunate by such 
suggestions, and complicate instead of simplifying life's 
perplexing problem. The divine providence, I repeat, 
not only seems but is different in the differing propor- 
tion of good and ill, which it permits and decrees. The 
divine pillar is darkness to some and radiance to others ; 
and why shall we affect to deny the fact? Are we mser 
than God, that we should attempt to make out as unreal 
what He has made unmistakably real? Let us simply 
and reverently admit that the divine pillar presents these 
two aspects of light and darkness, that the divine provi- 
dence allots very different measures of joy and sorrow, 
of pleasure and pain, to life's travelers. 

How, then, shall we justify the divine dealings? Who 
are we, that we should take it upon ourselves to justif] 
the workings and ways of the infinite Jehovah? 

" God is His own interpreter, 
And He will make it plain.'' 



72 TWO ASPECTS OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



We honor Him best when we reverently bow before 
His appointments, when we look to the pillar of His provi- 
dence as a divine pillar, whether it present a bright or 
dark aspect; and we best help the wretched and despair- 
ing, not by attempting to argue with them that the propor- 
tions of good and ill are about alike to all, that there is a 
skeleton in every house, that there is often keen misery 
within the home when externally all seems fair. Such 
arguing and asserting have no power to bind up broken 
hearts or to fill empty flour-barrels. By no such assertions 
or reasonings do we help them, but by frankly admitting 
that their lot is a hard one, by tenderly sympathizing with 
them, by lending them a helping hand, by proving real 
friends to them, and by accompanying acts of substantial 
kindness with unobtrusive but earnest suggestion that we 
all stand in the great hand of God; that He is infinite in 
power, wisdom, and love; that this life is not all, that we 
are but beginning here to learn His ways; that by and by 
more light will come, and if we will only do our best He 
will help us. Brotherly sympathy and solid kindness — they 
are better than all arguments, they make the heart's strong 
reasoning, which has tender affection for a premise, kindly 
deeds for its middle term, and grateful, reviving hope for 
its conclusion; and that is reasoning which the heart feels 
and accepts. Once convince the unhappy that they have 
in you, a fellow-mortal, a genuine friend, and you will 
have done more than any mere logician or all logicians can 
do to remove their doubts and to help them to confide in 
God. The reality of human friendship is the best intima- 
tion and foreshadowing of divine. The power of Chris- 
tianity in removing doubts and in ministering to faith is 
not in elaborate argumentation, for such the gospel gives 
not, but in the friendship, the kindness, the redeeming love 



TWO ASPECTS OF THE DIVINE I'KOVI I >E\< !.. 



73 



of Jesus. 77/(7/ love, so deep, tender, de 
revealed to men the divine. Such love they have felt was 
divine. If the Son thus loved, how infinite the loi 
the Father. 

The pillar of the divine providence has different aspe< ts of 
brightness and gloom for different persons. Let us not 
try to reason away the fact or to conceal it by thick clouds 
of argumentative dust, but freely admit it. We best hi 
God, our Father, who is Truth, as He is Love, by truth, 
by perfect frankness, by acknowledging facts to be fa< ts, 
however strange and perplexing they may appear to us, 
however difficult to be reconciled with our theory of 
life and the universe, or, so far as we can see, with His 
infinite and impartial goodness. He, we may be sure, is 
better pleased when in child-like spirit we say, "Father, 
we can not understand this and that dark experience, 
but we reverently bow r before thy will," than when 
we undertake to show to our suffering fellow-mortals 
that there is no mystery, no perplexity, nothing hard to 
reconcile with the divine benignity ; and to that reverent, 
loving, filial spirit much sooner comes, than to the self-con- 
fident and assuming, the light which dispels the darkness, 
and the hope which brings life and peace. 

The pillar of the divine providence not only presents 
different aspects to different persons, but different aspects 
to the same person in his life-journey. At times it is very 
dark and gloomy, sorrows press upon one in close sua es- 
sion, disappointments, by their frequency and greatness, 
dishearten, the gleam and the beauty of life seem to have 
vanished forever. At otfier times it is almost dazzlingly 
bright, through the coming to us of exceeding happil 
through a fulfillment, surpassing expectation, of cherished 
hopes and the accomplishment of all-important plans. 

6 



74 TWO ASPECTS OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



Very different, utterly different, are these two aspects of 
the divine providence ; and the fact of the difference let us 
freely and fully admit; admit, too, as we doubtless feel, 
that the greatness of the gloom and the greatness of the 
light alike exceed our power of complete explanation. Let 
us stand on the solid ground of fact and wait, in patience 
and trust, for our Father's own time and measure of 
explanation. 

" They also serve who only stand and wait." 

And though they may stand and wait in blindness and 
darkness, by and by to the brave soul light will come. 

That the pillar of the divine providence presents these 
different aspects we know ; why it presents them we do not 
fully know, nor can we perfectly know with the short-sight- 
edness and amid the limitations of earth and mortality. 
But though the aspects are now bright, now dark, it is the 
pillar of the divine providence which presents them. That 
is the great, the fundamental, the all - essential fact. On 
that we can stand, and stand firm, calm, strong. And 
though with our limited range and little power of vision 
we may not now see why it presents them, we are assured 
that it is for reasons which commend themselves to infinite 
Wisdom and to impartial and undying Love, and which 
involve our ultimate and highest good, the real and endur- 
ing good of all the children of God. As presented in our 
text, the pillar is darkness to the Egyptians and light to the 
Israelites: but Egyptians and Israelites both belong to the 
heavenly Father's great family, and for that family He 
always cares, and on its true welfare he is always intent. 
In His leading of the Israelites to the promised land He 
was not leading them only, but, in fact, the Egyptians also; 



TWO ASPECTS OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 75 



that is, he was leading all humanity. In His di with 
the Israelites He was educating and developing them, 
making them, as a people, the medium lor the transmi 
and illustration of most sacred and precious truths, not for 
their sake only, but for the sake of the whole human family. 
Ultimately, through Moses the great law-giver, and the 
grand line of prophets and seers, and the Teat her and 
Redeemer for whom they prepared the way, in whose ^in- 
like brilliance their single rays were to be merged — light 
swallowed up in greater light — all branches of the great 
family, all kindreds, tribes, and nations were to be blessed. 
In the final blessing the Egyptians, as all other members, 
were to share; and thus for them, too, though the pillar 
presented an aspect of cloud and gloom, it was neverthe- 
less the pillar of the divine providence. 

The lesson thus taught is of wide, universal applica- 
bility. Consider it. It is the essential oneness, the 
solidarity of the race of man, constituting, through all the 
ages and in all climes, one family — God's great human 
family — the family of the one Father; and this family He 
is ever leading through the wilderness of inexperience and 
probationary, disciplinary trials toward the land of promise, 
the Canaan of higher truth, of deeper faith, of larger knowl- 
edge, of purer piety, of more active and disinterested 
beneficence. It is this family that the pillar of the divine 
providence is always guiding. To one portion it ma\ 
present a dark, to another a bright aspect, but to the family, 
the whole family, and always, it is the pillar of the divine 
providence, and under its guidance the family is steadily 
moving on. Slow may the movement of the pillar seem, 
and slow the progress of the family be. Slow seemed the 
journeying .of the Israelitish people through the w ilderness 
and oft were they impatient, but in giiod time, in God's 



76 TWO ASPECTS OF THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE. 



own time, which is always good, the land of promise was 
reached. In His own good time His great family will 
reach its promised land; and during its marchings the 
pillar will never fail to attend and guide them, and they 
will always find it, whether presenting a bright or dark 
aspect, the pillar of a divine providence. 

How cheering in thought, how soothing, and at the 
same time how strengthening, are the lines in our Quaker 
Poet's hymn of love and trust: 

" Enough that blessings undeserved 
Have marked my erring track; 
That, wheresoe'er my feet have swerved 
Thy chastening turned me back; 

'•'That more and more a providence 
Of love is understood, 
Making the springs of time and sense 
Sweet with eternal good ; 

" That death seems but a covered way 
Which opens into light, 
Wherein no blinded child can stray 
Beyond the Father's sight. 

" No longer forward or behind 
I look, in hope or fear, 
But grateful take the good I find, 
God's blessing now and here." 



TWO ASPECTS OF THK DIVINE PKoVIDEM I 



ETERNAL LIGHT. 

M Slowly, by God's hand unfurled, 
Down around the weary world 
Falls the darkness ; oh ! how still 
Is the working of His will ! 

" Mighty Spirit, ever nigh, 
Work in me as silently ; 
Veil the day's distracting sights, 
Show me heaven's eternal lights. 

u Living stars to view be brought, 
In the boundless realm of thought ; 
High and infinite desires, 
Flaming like those upper fires. 

" Holy Truth, Eternal Right, 
Let them break upon my sight ; 
Let them shine serene and still, 
And with light my being fill." 

W. H. Fur ness. 



<; God hides Himself within the love 

Of those whom we love best; 
The smiles and tones that make our homes 

Are shrines by Him possessed. 
He tents within the lonely heart, 

And shepherds every thought; 
We find Him not by seeking long, 

We lose Him not, unsought." 

William C. Gannett. 



RIGHTEOUSNESS: 
Or, Life on the Square. 

* 



" Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, 
for they shall be filled." — Matthew v, 6. 

The answer in the Westminster Catechism to the question, 
"What is the chief end of man?" is "To glorify God and 
to enjoy him forever." A grand answer it is, clean-cut, 
pithy, telling. Nothing can be finer, completer, more 
satisfactory, provided only that you give a broad and just 
interpretation to the terms used. What is it to gli 
God? " Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me," is the lan- 
guage of one of the sublimest Psalms. But what is it to 
offer praise, acceptable praise, to God? We have the 
answer at hand in the words with which the psalmist ends 
his glorious hymn: "To him that ordereth his conversation 
aright will I show the salvation of God." "Conversation" 
in the Bible use of the word is equivalent to "life.*" A 
rightly-ordered life, then, is man's truest anthem of divine 
praise, his noblest, sweetest, richest, grandest symphony. 
But what is a rightly- ordered life? A life based upon 
divine principles, the everlasting principles of rec titude, 
and pervaded by the spirit of reverenc e, truth, jtistice, 
tenderness, and charity. In other words, it is a righteous 
life, the life of one who aims to be right, and to do right ; 



8o 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 



and to him who thus ordereth his conversation, who with 
manliness of soul, sincerely, penitently, earnestly, makes, 
or with all his heart tries to make, his life in little things 
and in great, in private and in public, true, on the square — 
to that man the salvation of God is shown on earth and in 
heaven. This is the law and the prophets. " To obey is 
better than sacrifice." "Create in me a clean heart, O 
God! and renew a right spirit within me." " Lord, who 
shall abide in thy tabernacle ? who shall dwell in thy holy 
hill? He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteous- 
ness, and speaketh the truth in his heart." "Wash you, 
make you clean ; put away the evil of your doings from 
before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to do well. Seek 
judgment; relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead 
for the widow. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall 
be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they 
shall be as wool." "They that be wise shall shine as the 
brightness of the firmament ; and they that turn many to 
righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever." "He hath 
showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the 
Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, 
and to walk humbly with thy God?" "Blessed are they 
which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they 
shall be filled." " By their fruits ye shall know them. Not 
every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into 
the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my 
Father which is in heaven." "Then shall the righteous 
answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, 
and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw 
we thee a stranger and took thee in? or naked, and clothed 
thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came 
unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, 
Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto 



RiGirrrcousxKss. 



Si 



one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
me." "Pure religion and undefiled before God and tin- 
Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their 
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. 

That is the Bible teaching about righteousness. M 
because of difference in mental powers and tendrnri<>. 
in education and association, may honestly differ in 
regard to the scripture teachings upon recondite themes 
such as are involved in doctrines of Trinity, Incarnation, 
Atonement; but a man must be incapable of seeing any 
brightness in the sun's noonday light, who fails to see tl 
the Bible in both Testaments bears overwhelming attestation 
not only to righteousness as of supreme importance, but 
also to it as the great end set before man by religion 
in the providential discipline of life. This is the end to 
which and for which churches, ordinances, sacrament-, and 
the varied apparatus and appliances of mental and moral 
education are instruments and means. And if men. because 
of having their mental eyes temporarily blinded by the- 
ologic dust, or their minds confused by metaphysical 
subtlety and sophistry, are in doubt as to what the Bible 
means by righteousness, bid them read the words of St. John 
the evangelist, "Let no one deceive you; he that doeth 
righteousness is righteous;'' — words as accordant with 
sturdy common sense as with the finest spirit of religion— 
and they will see that when the writers of the Bible speak 
of righteousness they mean just what the word itself, on 
the surface and in its depths, implies, tightness of heart and 
rightness of life before God and man. And this rightness, 
this real, genuine, practical righteousness is just what i> 
needed in church and state, in homes and pla< es of busi- 
ness — every where and always. It is the transfiguration 
of daily living by the two great commandments, and when 



82 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 



this transfiguration shall become complete, the beautiful 
vision will be made real of " New heavens and a new 
earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." 

O for righteousness — personal, individual, practical, 
living righteousness! One's heart sometimes almost fails 
him, and he trembles for his country and for the world 
when he sees the wide prevalence and the mighty influence 
of unrighteousness. How sickening ofttimes the record 
in the daily papers of drunkenness and debauchery, not 
merely among the ignorant and debased, but also in what 
are called the better classes of society ! How frequent the 
occurrence of the crimes of sensualism, the deadly sins 
against the family and the home! How widely diffused 
the poison, the deadly virus of political corruption! How 
trickery, chicanery, bribery, and the degrading arts of the 
demagogue abound! How often, too, in commercial life, 
and in the manifold dealings of man with man, the sense 
of right is blunted, and the fine spirit of honor is wanting, 
which makes a word binding as a bond and gives to a 
promise sacramental power! I draw no disparaging con- 
trasts between the past and the present, for in many 
respects the advantage is with the present; nor do I 
forget nor underrate the frequent manifestations of noblest 
qualities and grandest virtues, by which our age is fre- 
quently and vividly illustrated. I speak of the dark 
realities forced upon eye and thought, and of the power- 
ful appeal made by them for solid righteousness. 

One of the bravest, noblest, and grandest of the 
prophets, speaking in the name of his people when they 
were sunken in wretchedness and degradation, says, "Our 
righteousnesses are as filthy rags/*' meaning that real 
righteousness had largely disappeared, and that shams and 
pretenses had usurped its place. It is a singular and 



rigiiti;ou>ni>- . 



83 



strong illustration of the liability of the human mind to 
grossest delusions, that the denunciation by tin- straight- 
forward, heroic prophet of unreal, hollow, falsely-called 
righteousness should have been utterly misinterpreted and 
perverted, as if he had meant to depreciate and protest 
against the efficiency and measureless value of genuine 
righteousness. The filthy rags of falsely -r ailed right- 
eousness are always an offense to God and to godly men, 
but evermore and only beautiful on earth and in heaven 
is the fine linen, clean and white, of genuine righteous] 
the righteousness of God's true and loving children. 

" Our people are very much afraid of moralitv and of 
the preaching of morality," said a bright, broad-minded 
Presbyterian minister lately in an interesting and telling 
sermon; "they are afraid of it; but for my part I think 
morality freely indulged in comes pretty near to religion." 
Very, very near to religion does real morality approach, as 
the Sermon on the Mount shows us ; for that sermon, which 
is the condensed essence of divine inspiration, is the serm< >n 
of morality and religion, of vitalizing religion and of vitalized 
morality, or of righteousness, which is concrete and mani- 
fested religion. 

As to the fear of morality and of moral preaching alluded 
to by our Presbyterian brother, it is easily enough accounted 
for. No small amount of preaching has been based upon 
the perversion of prophetic language just alluded to — a per- 
version made so complete at times, that ministers in the pul- 
pit, after portraying noble and grand characters, < hara< ters 
marked by truth, unselfish heroism, unfaltering de\ 
duty, and almost every human virtue, have said in sub- 
stance that, notwithstanding all excellences, for want of 
some special experience, mental or spiritual, these men in 
the sight of God were unfit for heaven. No wonder that 



8 4 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 



when pulpits have thus misunderstood and perverted the 
teachings of prophets and apostles and of the great Teacher, 
God's well-beloved Son, many of the listeners have been led 
into unthinking dread of morality and moral preaching. 
Thank God, that style of pulpit instruction is growing 
obsolete. 

But there is another reason why some good but not 
closely discriminating people have had apprehensions and 
fears in regard to morality and its preaching. They have 
seen too often that men, who have prided themselves upon 
morality, and have set morality over against religion, have 
not made such manifestations of morality as to render it 
altogether beautiful, satisfactory, and attractive. As thus 
illustrated, morality very frequently has been poor and thin 
enough, without spiritual earnestness, of course, but also 
without the fine enthusiasm of humanity. 

Sufficiently observant of social decencies and proprieties, 
it has no heart throbbing with sympathy for humanity's 
sins, sorrows, and wrongs, and no healing balm for its 
wounds. In such morality there* is no renovating, no 
quickening power, and one wonders not that men craving 
help and spiritual strength shrink from and dread it. Cruel 
mockery is it when hungry souls ask for bread to offer them 
stones. Morality of this kind is as far removed from the 
vitalized morality, the righteousness of the Bible, as is the 
sham and hollow righteousness denounced by the prophet. 

All wrong are they on this side or that, who divorce 
religion and morality, and thus, so far as their influence 
goes, bar out from churches and communities that majestic, 
renewing, transforming Spirit of living and life-giving Right- 
eousness, whose presence is incentive and inspiration. 

Righteousness is the emphatic, the decisive, the ringing 
word from the lips of all the brave, true, white souls that 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 



85 



speak to us in both Testaments. And by righteou 
they mean ng$/eousness, not t f7&ousness. No more 
wrong is clone to character, no deadlier blow is strut k at 
the foundations of society, than when the grand centra] 
Christ-idea is set aside, and "rite*' is put in place of 
"right." Once lived in our community, and he was a 
worshiper in our church, a man of true and heroic spirit, 
who was as frank in speech as he was upright in chara< ter 
and straightforward in life, and one evening there came to 
his house a man professedly religious, a minister whom he 
received with cordial, generous hospitality. The visitor had 
come in regard to business of importance to some orphan 
children, and was invited to spend the night. At the 
supper-table his host asked him to invoke the divine 1 
ing. When the meal was over our friend took his guest to 
a quiet room, where till a late hour the business arrange- 
ments were discussed. Much to the surprise of his wife, at 
breakfast the next morning her husband did not ask the 
guest to pray, and when the latter had gone she sou- lit an 
explanation. The reply was, "I saw last night that that 
man did not mean to do the right and square thing by 
those children, and no man who would cheat the orphan 
and the friendless shall pray at my table." To this clear- 
eyed, venerable man the Sermon on the Mount meant 
something, and "rite" was nothing without "right." To 
him, as to the psalmist of old, the one thing certain and 
unmistakable was, "that the righteous Lord loveth right- 
eousness." "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst 
after righteousness, for they shall be filled.'' 



86 



RIGHTEOUSNESS. 



"HE THAT HATH SEEN ME HATH SEEN THE FATHER." 

u O Love ! O Life ! our faith and sight 
Thy presence maketh one : 
As through transfigured clouds of white 
We trace the noonday sun, 

" So to our mortal eyes subdued. 
Flesh-veiled, but not concealed, 
We know in thee the fatherhood 
And heart of God revealed. 

" We faintly hear, we dimly see, 
In differing phrase we pray ; 
But, dim or clear, we own in thee 
The Light, the Truth, the Way. 

" The homage that we render thee 
Is still our Father's own; 
Nor jealous claim or rivalry 
Divides the Cross and Throne. 

" To do thy will is more than praise, 
As words are less than deeds ; 
And simple trust can find thy ways 
We miss with chart of creeds. 

*" Our Friend, our Brother, and our Lord, 
What may thy service be? 
Not name, nor form, nor ritual word, 
But simply following thee." 

John G. Whittier. 



IMMANUEL, GOD WITH US, THE KEY- 
NOTE OF HISTORY. 



A CHRISTMAS LESSON. 



4t They shall call his name Immanuel; which, being interpreted, is 
God with us." — Matthew i, 23. 

Advent season, preceding and ushering in Christ's birth- 
day, is reverently celebrated by many Christians in ways 
fitly commemorative of the coming of One whose spirit, 
work, and influence were to affect sooner or later, and 
affect deeply, all men, all institutions, all civilizations. 
A wonderful person, by universal acknowledgment, was 
he who exerted and still exerts this immeasurable and 
deathless influence. Let him be placed in the scale of 
being wherever the theories, the love, the reverence, the 
superstition, the scepticism of men may place him — at the 
summit of creation, the Almighty God, the first of created 
beings, the head of angelic throngs, the first-born and dearest 
Son of God, or the man of Nazareth — however he may be 
regarded metaphysically or theologically, in fact, in life, in 
far-reaching power, by consent of all he stands forth the 
man of the ages, the providential man. Strauss may en- 
deavor to resolve the gospel narratives into mere legends 
and his alleged deeds into my ths, but Jesus is not resolved 
nor dissolved. Profound criticism, historical research, far- 



88 



TMMANUEL, GOD WITH US. 



reaching sagacity and loyalty to truth have placed the 
heroes and sages of other religions in nobler positions than 
were formerly assigned them, and justice long withheld has 
been finally accorded, but the placing of Zoroaster, Confu- 
cius. Buddha, Socrates, Mohammed, in their legitimate and 
honorable positions, has not lowered the position of Jesus. 
Regarded with less superstition than in former ages, he was 
never regarded with so much true reverence as now; never 
was his spirit so pervasive of the noblest civilization as it is 
to-day. Jean Paul Richter was no fanatical religionist, but 
he recognized the transcendent worth and power of Jesus, 
and gave expression to his realizing thought in words of 
signal power, wildly beautiful, wierd, and picturesque : 

"There once trod our earth a single being, who, by his 
sole moral omnipotence, controlled other ages and founded 
an immortality peculiarly his own. He, gently blooming 
and tractable to influences from on high like the sun-flower, 
but in his ardor and power of attracting, a Sun, he, still 
with mildness of aspect, drew alike himself, nations, and 
ages, to the universal and original sun. It is the meek 
Spirit, whom we name Jesus Christ. If he was, then there 
is a Providence — or rather he was it." Dammerungen fur 
Deutschland — quoted by Olshausen, vol. 3, 156. 

And Felix Adler, the distinguished radical Jew, speaks 
thus of the wonderful man : 

"Whether we find him in the intimate circle of his 
disciples, whether he is instructing the multitude along the 
sunny shores of Lake Gennesareth, whether he stands 
before the tribunal of his judges, or in the last dire agonies 
of death, he is ever the patient man, the loving teacher, 
the man of sorrows, who looks beyond men and their 
crimes to an ideal humanity, and confides in that : who 
gives largely, and forgives even because he gives so much. 



IMMANUEL, GOD WITH US. 



89 



But we shall not touch the true secret of his power until 
we recall his sympathy with the neglected Has.se 
society; that quality of his nature which caused the poor 
of Galilee to hail him as their deliverer, which pfodut ed 50 
lasting an impression upon his contemporaries, and nude 
the development of his doctrines into a great religion 
possible. His gospel was preeminently the gospel for the 
poor; he sat down with despised publicans: he did not 
shun the contamination of lepers, nay, nor of the moral 
leprosy of sin; he visited the hovels of paupers, and tai 
his disciples to prefer them to the mansions of the for- 
tunate; he applied himself with peculiar fervor to those 
dumb, illiterate masses of Galilee, who knew not whither 
they might turn, to what they might cling. He gave them 
hope, he brought them help. And so it came about that 
in the early Christian communities which were still fresh 
from the presence of the Master, the appeal to const ience 
he had made so powerfully resulted in solid helpfulness: so 
it came about that in those pristine days the church was 
a real instrument of practical good, with few forms and 
little parade, hut with love-feasts and the communion-table 
spread with repasts for the needy. 4 Come unto me. all ye 
that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rc^t. 

Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me for my 

yoke is easy and my burden is light/ 

"It is from such particulars that there was drawn that 
fascinating image, which has captivated the fancy and 
attracted the worship of mankind: the image of the pale 
man with the deep, earnest eyes, who roused men to new 
exertions for the good, who lifted up the downtrodden, 
who loved little children, and taught the older children in 
riddles and parables that they might understand, and the 
brief career of whose life was hallowed all the more in 



go 



IMMANUEL, GOD WITH US. 



memory, because of the mournful tragedy in which it 
closed. All the noblest qualities of humanity were put 
into this picture and made it lovely. It was the humanity, 
not the dogma of Jesus, by which Christianity triumphed. 
Like a refreshing shower in the perfumed spring, his glad 
tidings of a new enthusiasm for the good came upon the 
arid Roman world, sickening with the dry-rot of self-indul- 
gence, and thirsting for some principle to give a purpose 
to the empty weariness of existence. Like a message from 
a sphere of light it spread to the Germanic tribes, tempered 
the harshness of their manners, taught them a higher law 
than that of force, and conquered their grim strength with 
the mild pleadings of the Master of meekness in far-off 
Galilee.*' 

This was the providential man. the man of destiny, to 
whom was early applied the language of an ancient prophet. 
"They shall call his name Immanuel. which means God 
with us.'" A grand name it is, sublimely beautiful and 
wonderfully descriptive, vividly expressive of the pro- 
foundest of truths, the incarnation of divinity in 
humanity, and exactly representative of his grand prerog- 
ative and influence in causing a realization of the great 
truth, the fact of facts — that God is with men, with us, 
with all. 

From the beginning, the infinite Mind has expressed 
that central, dominating fact. He announced ft when he 
created man in His own image. When He made the soul 
of the first man to mirror Himself. He declared that deep, 
solemn truth of incarnation. "God with us." He was 
with the first man. was in the first man — with him. close to 
him, environing him, and in him, as largely, as fully, as 
completely, as the receptivity of the soul of the first man 
would permit him to be; there was as much of the life of 



IMMANUEL, GOD WITH US 



9' 



God, as much of God himself, in that soul as it was* apable 
of receiving. The bodily form of the first man, the part that 
allies him to the animal world — say what you will about 
that; let physiologists, anatomists, and chemists, with te^t> 
and analyses and microscope and scalpel do what they 
will; say, if you will, that it was created directly from the 
dust, taking literally the sacred narrative; or say, if you 
prefer, that it was the result of long, slow development and 
evolution — the great fact remains, and it makes that early 
Bible record shine with star-like radiance, that the soul of 
that man was made in the image of God. That is the 
great spiritual, religious, mental, moral, central fact : the 
fact which unites God with man and man with God. The 
first man, so far as his soul received God — mirrored, man- 
ifested Him — was Immanuel, "God with us;" and as that 
first man was representative of all men, so every man, just 
in proportion to his receptivity and to his actual reception 
of God, has been "Immanuel." Of the soul that some 
where, just now, is beginning its life-experience, it is true, 
as of the soul that opened in Paradise, that it is made in 
the divine image, and, thus made, it is receptive of God. 
Universal humanity thus becomes an announcement, an 
everliving and vivid expression of the grandest of facts, 
the most impressive of truths — the Incarnation, " Imman- 
uel, God with us." 

And this is the key-note of history, viz. that the infinite 
Spirit, the Father of souls, has been and is, always and 
every where, seeking to enter, to pervade, to fill, to ennoble, 
to transfigure every soul, that the earthly, selfish, animal, 
sensual elements may be subjected to the heavenly and the 
divine. This is the conflict of the ages; this is (iod's con- 
troversy with man, carried on not in wrath, but in tore, for 
the exaltation of man to the highest plane, for the ti 



9 2 



IM MANUEL, GOD WITH US. 



formation of society into beautiful, helpful, divinely-human 
brotherhood. 

Many souls have been widely open, largely receptive of 
God, and His indwelling, illumining presence has made 
them light, life, and blessing to countless spirits. But one 
soul, the Soul, that which dwelt within the mortal form of 
Jesus, was from the beginning open to the infinite, inflow- 
ing, divine presence; open in childhood, youth, manhood; 
open in Nazareth, Bethany, Samaria, Jerusalem; open on 
the mount of transfiguration, in Gethsemane's garden, on 
the hill of Calvary; open in the hour of sweet interchange 
of thought with loved friends, in the hour of solitude, in 
the seasons when surging multitudes pressed around, hungry 
for the words of truth and thirsting for the gracious dew of 
love. With soul thus open to God and thus receptive of 
him, Jesus was filled with the divinity ; every power, every 
faculty of his nature — moral, mental, emotional, spiritual — 
filled with God's thought, with His truth, His love, His 
holiness, His sympathy, His tenderness. How really, how 
truly, he thus became "Immanuel," God with us; and how 
really, how truly he thus became "man with us;" his man- 
hood expanded, ennobled, exalted, illumined into divine 
humanity. Thus he became the man of men, the friend 
of friends; friend of the poor, friend of all, tender, com- 
passionate, sympathetic, brave, heroic, loving with God's 
own love, and through that love made the reconciler, 
the atoner, mediator, uniter, father and founder of the 
new age, leader of humanity, conqueror of death, revealer 
of immortality. 

You see where was the hiding of his power, what was 
the secret of his strength. It was his deep, living convic- 
tion that God was with him; that his ends, purposes, 
methods were those of God. " The w r ords that I speak 



IMMANUEL, GOD Willi [JS. 



93 



unto you I speak not of myself, hut the Father that dwell 
eth in me, he doeth the works." u Emmanuel" — God with 
me — that was the key-note of his life, the inspiration of his 
heart and hope, the open secret of that moral omnipotent e 
of which Jean Paul speaks. That it was which in solitude 
made him conscious of glorious companionship, in weak 
ness endowed him with resistless strength. 

"Immanuel" — God with me — that is the inspiration of 
every prophet and true reformer. 

"Immanuel" — God with us — it is the inspiration, the life, 
the power of every true and effective church. Su< h a 
church feels that it has God's truth in it. that it has some 
of God's work to do, that it has God's inspiring Spirit tor 
its light, strength, guidance. In that conviction it lives, it 
is vital all through, it becomes a power. Its presenee, its 
influence are recognized and felt all through the commu- 
nity. It knows not lethargy, indifference, nor cowardice. 
It is brave, it is aggressive; aggressive against all falsity, and 
all shams ; aggressive for all truth and right. If a church 
believes that it has God's work to do and that other 
churches have it not, then it becomes fanatical, narrow, 
bigoted. If a church does not believe that it has God's 
work to do, then it becomes — nothing. Our church 
stands, or ought to stand, for a large, generous interpreta- 
tion of Christianity, for living faith in Jesus and in his 
large, loving purposes, methods, and spirit: for sympathy, 
charity, humanity, and earnest beneficence. 

The " Immanuel " conviction, the consciousness that 
God is with it. gives living and vitalizing energy to a 
church, fills its mind with great thoughts, its heart with 
great affections, rouses all its powers to a resoluteness of 
will, to a determinateness of purpose, that gives it full 
command of its resources, increases those resourc e- mar- 



94 



IMMANUEL, GOD WITH US. 



velously, and makes difficulties vanish before its beneficent 
activity. God grant that this deep, living, Immanuel con- 
sciousness may be unfailing inspiration to the heart and 
hope of our church and of all churches, animating and 
impelling us all to lives and deeds accordant with the spirit 
and life of Him, the Son of man, whom perfect, filial 
obedience transfigured into the Son of God. 



" Calm, on the listening ear of night, 
Come heaven's melodious strains, 
Where wild Judea stretches far 
Her silver-mantled plains. 

" Celestial choirs, from courts above, 
Shed sacred glories there; 
And angels, with their sparkling lyres, 
Make music on the air. 

"The answering hills of Palestine 
Send back the glad reply; 
And greet, from all their holy heights, 
The day-spring from on high. 

" O'er the blue depths of Galilee, 
There comes a holier calm; 
And Sharon waves, in solemn praise, 
Her silent groves of palm., 

" 'Glory to God,' the sounding skies 

Loud with their anthems ring; 
" ' Peace to the earth, good-will to men, 

From heaven's eternal King!' 

" Light on thy hills, Jerusalem ! 
The Saviour now is born ; 
And bright, on Bethlehem's joyous plains, 
Breaks the first Christmas morn." 

Edmund H. Sears. 



FOREGLKAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



M Beloved, now are we the sons of God. and it doth not yet appear 
what we shall be; but we know that when he shall appear 
we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.'* — I 
John iii, 2. 

In one of his letters to Timothy the apostle Paul, 
out of the fullness of a loving heart, a great and 
consecrated mind, and a very marked and profound 
experience, exclaims, " Now unto the King eternal, 
immortal, invisible, the only wise God,' be honor and 
glory forever and ever. Amen.'* Thus does the 
gifted and inspired writer characterize the infinite 
Sovereign, the ever-present Creator, the all-loving heav- 
enly Father. Of this eternal, immortal King, this only 
wise God, St. John, as well as St. Paul, pronounces us 
children: "Now are we the sons of God." This close, 
intimate, filial relation of man to God is indicated or 
plainly stated in all parts of the Bible. It is presented 
emphatically and most impressively in the opening c hapter 
of the book of Genesis: "So God created man in his 
own image; in the image of God created he him; male 
and female created he them." And when Luke, the 
evangelist, gives the genealogy of our Saviour, he traces 



9 6 



FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



it back from generation to generation up to the primeval 
man "Adam, who was the son of God." Matthew, 
writing originally for Hebrew Christians, traces the line 
to Abraham, "father of the faithful." Luke, writing for 
Christians generally, irrespective of Jewish and Gentile 
divisions, carries it beyond the great patriarch to the 
first man, humanity's earliest representative, whom it 
connects in tersest, simplest, and therefore most emphatic 
language, directly with the heavenly Father, "Adam, the 
son of God." 

"Have we not all one Father? hath not one God 
created us?" says the prophet Malachi, thus recognizing, 
as do all the writers in the sacred volume, man's filial 
relation to God — a relation confirmed by that divine Spirit, 
"Which beareth witness with our spirit that we are the 
children of God, and if children, then heirs; heirs of God 
and joint-heirs with Christ." 

Can it be true that we are thus intimately connected 
with the infinite Spirit? Are we in very truth sons and 
daughters of God? And is He the King eternal, im- 
mortal? Then are we by our very nature participant of 
his immortality. The thought is grand beyond realization. 
We may say of it, as the psalmist says of the divine 
omnipresence, "It is high; we can not attain unto it." 
So vast, so measureless, is the distance between the 
divine almightiness and human feebleness, between the 
divine omniscience and man's ignorance, between the 
divine holiness and human sinfulness, that a connection 
so near, so tender, so sacred, between man and God 
seems incredible, impossible. Yet revelation asserts it. 
God's own Spirit whispers it to our spirits, and there 
are periods in our experience, those seasons of in- 
tensest interest in which deep cries unto deep, when 



FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY 



97 



we feel, and arc thrilled by the consciousness, that 
the God of heaven is indeed our Father. 

United thus closely, thus vitally, to the eternal and 
immortal King, bearing his image, parti< [pant of the 
divine nature, is it strange that man should have glimpses 
of immortality? Shall the Father dwell in immortality? 
Shall immortality be the essential characteristic of Hi-> 
being, and shall no ray of the unfading light visit His 
child? A son of the immortal King, it would be sur- 
passingly strange if man had no foregleams of immor- 
tality. 

What is this great, enkindling thought of immortal life, 
which has come to the human mind ever sinc e it was 
capable of thought and aspiration, in all ages and all lan<!>; 
this thought which the ever-recurring presence of death 
can not destroy, which lives, though in a world wh<>^e 
myriad green graves would seem to proclaim it a cemetery 
for the dead rather than a home for the living? What i> 
this inspiring, energizing thought but a foregleam of im- 
mortality? Whence came it? How did it find entrant e to 
the human mind? 

You will not, I know, give the poor, shallow answer, that 
it was formed by priests for the sake of deluding their 
fellow-beings and perpetuating their own ecclesiastical 
power. Men surely were men before they were priests, 
and the priests were but men; whence then had they the 
animating thought? And have the priests of the world 
been greater than its greatest men? Had Athens priests 
whose minds surpassed the minds of Socrates and Plato? 
Let us know who they were; give us their names, for men 
gifted with such transcendent intellectual powers surely 
bore no names that were born to die. From no Athenian 
priest or priesthood came to Socrates the subKme, com* 



9 8 



FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



forting, invigorating thought of immortality. It came to 
him from no priesthood, but from his own manhood, and 
because that manhood was so broad and high, so genuine 
and profound, so consecrated to truth, and thus so faithful 
to its divine birth, his sense of immortality was clear and 
keen as the eagle's vision. 

Tell me not that priests formed and developed and 
kept alive and powerful the thought of immortality. 
Nay, rather, in many parts of the world and in long 
ages, that thought of thoughts has lived in spite of 
priests and priesthoods. For what have they often done 
to, and what have they done with, this great heritage 
of humanity? They did not form it; they found it, and 
found it because man had it, and they undertook — 
some of them, not all — to make it an instrument for ex- 
tending and perpetuating their sway. Hence their terrible 
perversion of it, their transformation of a beautiful spirit 
of light, heaven-born, into a horrifying spirit of darkness. 
Hence those fearful, mediaeval, ecclesiastical schemings, 
imaginings, and portrayings, by which the perspective of 
the spiritual world was utterly destroyed, and the murky 
gloom of a hopeless hell was made to cover and shroud 
the larger part of God's universe. When one considers 
what dreadful representations have often been made of 
immortality, by men who claimed to be the teachers and 
leaders of mankind, he wonders almost that the thought of 
immortality was not rendered repulsive, if not destroyed 
altogether. It#vould have been destroyed if, by its origin 
and in its nature, it were not indestructible. From no 
priesthood did it come, but from manhood; and from 
manhood because it bore the image of divinity, because 
man is the child of the King immortal and eternal, and 
through that divine parentage receives the sense of immor- 



FOREGLKAMS OF IMMORTALITY. QQ 

tality — the instinct of immortality some call it. The name 
matters little. Call it what you will, sense or instim t, 
man has it, and has it because he is man, and the more 
of a man he is, the truer to great ideas, to lofty prilll 
and pure, generous affections, the keener the instinct, the 
more living and dominant the sense of immortality. 

And again the question recurs, "Is it strange that to one 
endowed with this instinct, possessing this sen- . 
gleams of immortality should be granted?" Does it appear 
strange or unnatural to you or me that Jesu> .should have 
had glimpses of immortality? I can not answer for you, 
but to me it would have seemed very unnatural if he had 
not had them. I do not see how he could help having 
them, for in him manhood was perfect; the eye of the soul 
was undimmed by sin; his whole being, physical, mental, 
moral, spiritual, was in accord with the divine will and law. 
So perfect a son of man was he that he was a perfect Son 
of God, fully participant, therefore, of the divine nature, 
and always receptive of the divine Spirit, which was given 
to him ceaselessly and without measure. Were it possible, 
think you, that this Son of the ever-living God, of the King 
eternal, immortal, should be without the keenest sense of 
immortality? Is it conceivable that he could have lived 
without having glimpses of the immortal world? Oh no! 
To him the heavens must have been always open, and 
immortality as near and real as the always-felt presence of 
die immortal God, his loving Father. Not glimpses merely 
had he, I imagine, but a clear, continuous vision of the 
King in his beauty, and of the glorious land that to him 
was never tar off. 

To pure, true, earnest, loving Christ-like spirits I believe 
that glimpses of immortality in all ages have been given, 
and in all ages will be given. Sometimes, as we have 



100 



FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



seen, they are given in thoughts so deep, so strong, so 
charged with the very essence of mental life as to be in 
themselves realizations of immortality. Sometimes they 
are given in convictions, assurances, into which the vitality 
and power of the whole nature, moral and intellectual, 
enter, and which make the world of immortality as real to 
consciousness as the life now lived. 

Sometimes actual glimpses are given to the opened 
spiritual eye ' of persons and objects in the immortal 
state. 

Never can I forget the impression made upon my mind, 
long years ago, by the illuminated face, the inspiring words, 
the outflowing of more than mortal joy in one to whom, 
just before she crossed the river, the enrapturing glimpses 
were granted. Xo excitable enthusiast was she. but a lady 
of profound and thoroughly -disciplined mind, a superior 
educator, of calm, meditative temperament, usually rather 
reticent and undemonstrative, an earnest truth- seeker, and 
a conscientious truth -lover. I saw her often during her 
illness, which was prolonged through many months and 
attended frequently with much pain. Her mind was un- 
touched. It retained its calm clearness. She meditated 
as earnestly and continuously as ever, her thoughts growing 
deeper and grander all the while, her convictions daily 
becoming stronger and stronger until a few days before her 
departure, when faith was turned to sight, and she saw with 
emotions unutterable the world of life and immortality. 
An angel's face became hers, so luminous was it with the 
light "that was ne'er on earth or sea.' 5 Death even then 
was already swallowed up in victory, the corruptible put 
on incorruption and the mortal immortality. In lines 
written lone afterward, and by one who knew her not, 
but who was of kindred spirit, and who was brought to 



♦ 



F OREGLE A M S OF IMMORTALITY. IOI 

life's brink and then rallied again and lived on earth a little 
longer, we have in some respects almost an exac t trans* ripl 
of her inspiring experience: 

" Entering the cloud with anguish, 
Earthly friends stood clo>e beside me — 
Friends most faithful and heroic, 
Thinking only of my trial, 
And my bitter need of helping. 
Very close they walked beside me 
Till the way became too narrow, 
Only meant for single treading! 
With brief shudder, looking forward, 
I let go the hands that held me, 
And stepped out into the darkness! 
Then, with Love Divine upholding, 
I stood calm upon the margin 
Of the darkly-flowing river; 
Heard the dashing of the waters, 
Looked across and caught some glimpses 
Of that other shore eternal — 
Glimpses faint, but they have shown me 
Something of the life immortal ! 
Aye! and they have shown me also 
Something of the life now present." 

So it is that occasionally to earnest, conscientious, rev- 
erent, Christ -like souls, faithful sons and daughters of the 
heavenly Father, of the King eternal, immortal, invisible* 
glimpses are given of the beautiful world, and they see and 
appreciate the grandeur of the heritage of God, that glo- 
rious heritage referred to by the apostle in those words of 
wonderful and inexhaustible significance : "If children, then 
heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ." And c an 
this heritage be ours? Its very grandeur seems almost to 
make it unattainable. You remember the just, profound, 
and helpful words of Dr. Channing: "How full, how 



I02 FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 

bright, are the evidences of this grand truth. How weak 
are the common arguments which skepticism arrays against 
it. To me there is but one objection against immor- 
tality, if objection it may be called, and this arises from 
the very greatness of the truth. My mind sometimes 
sinks under its weight, is lost in its immensity. I scarcely 
dare believe that such a good is placed within my reach. 
When I think of myself as existing through all future ages, 
as surviving this earth and that sky, as exempted from 
every imperfection and error of my present being, as 
clothed with an angel's glory, as comprehending with my 
intellect and embracing in my affections an extent of 
creation, compared with which the world is a point; 
when I think of myself as looking on the outward universe 
with an organ of vision that will reveal to me a beauty and 
harmony and order not now imagined, and as having an 
access to the minds of the wise and good, which will make 
them in a sense my own; when I think of myself as form- 
ing friendships with innumerable beings of rich and various 
intellect and the noblest virtue, as introduced to the society 
of heaven, as meeting there the great and excellent of whom 
I have read in history; as joined with the just made perfect 
in an ever-enlarging ministry of benevolence, as conversing 
with Jesus Christ with the familiarity of friendship, and 
especially as having an immediate intercourse with God, such 
as the closest intimacies of earth <limly shadow forth; when 
this thought of my future being comes to me, while I hope I 
also fear; the blessedness seems too great, the consciousness 
of present weakness and unworthiness is almost too strong 
for hope. But when in this frame of mind I look round 
on the creation, and see there the works of an omnipotent 
goodness, to which nothing is impossible, and from which i 
every thing good may be hoped; when I see around me the 



FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 103 

proofs of an infinite Father, who must desire the perpetual 
progress of his intellectual offspring; when I look next al 
the human mind, and see what powers a few \< r 
unfolded, and discern in it the capacity of everlasting 
improvement; and especially when I look at Jesus, the 
conqueror of death, the heir of immortality, who has gone 
as the forerunner of mankind into the mansions of light 
and purity, I can and do admit the almost overpowering 
thought of the everlasting life, growth, felicity of the 
human soul.'' 

Are we indeed sons and daughters of the King eternal, 
immortal, and invisible, participants of His immortality? 
Then let us live and act as becomes His children, and heirs 
of the glorious heritage. Let our minds be consecrated 
by the love of truth and expanded by noble thought. Let 
our souls ascend constantly in reverent aspiration. Let our 
hearts be made pure and clean by the divine Spirit, and 
kept tender and warm by Christ-like sympathy, charity, and 
beneficence. Then shall the thought of immortality daily 
become grander and more vivifying, the assurance of im- 
mortality shall constantly strengthen and deepen, and, as it 
shall please the ever-living and ever-present Father, glimpses 
shall now and then be granted of the world of life and 
beauty, to transfigure faith into sight and give the heart a 
foretaste of immortal peace and joy and blessedness. To 
them who live most faithfully here and now the spiritual, 
the eternal life, shall come brightest foregleams of immor- 
tality. 



FOREGLEAMS OF IMMORTALITY. 



DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 

."Behold the western evening light! 
It melts in deepening gloom: 
So calm the righteous sink away, 
Descending to the tomb. 

"The winds breathe low; the yellow leaf 
Scarce whispers from the tree : 
So gently flows the parting breath, 
When good men cease to be. 

"How beautiful, on all the hills, 
The crimson light is shed ! 
'T is like the peace the dying gives 
To mourners round his bed. 

* How mildly, on the wandering cloud, 
The sunset beam is cast ! 
So sweet the memory left behind, 
When loved ones breathe their last. 

"And lo ! above the dews of night 
The vesper star appears : 
So faith lights up the mourner's heart, 
Whose eyes are dim with tears. 

"Night falls; but soon the morning light 
Its glories shall restore: 
And thus the eyes that sleep in death 
Shall wake to close no more." 



William B. O. Peabody. 



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